The Number 1 Hyperactive, Knucklehead Master
by Kenchi618
Summary: A little bit of misdirection was needed to coax Naruto into Jiraiya's infamous three-year training trip... but was this really the kind of 'training' that was supposed to happen? Rated for language and possible situations later on.
1. A Special S Rank Mission

**Okay, so check **_**this**_** retarded shit out. A few hours ago I got into a fight with my 19 year old brother… a physical fight with punches and everything. This fight came to an abrupt conclusion when I took his back and almost choked him unconscious trying to get him to admit that he was wrong. I had to let go because I can't choke my little brother out. I'm a trained killer (How would that look?), it just wasn't fair from the jump, and in the end he refused to admit that I was right about this.**

**The backstory goes as such; around twelve years ago we played Pokémon Yellow and Red respectively and he had a level 92 Charizard but the rest of his team was complete and utter hot garbo, and I had a fully reliable team of six level 65-to-75 level Pokémon on my team (My main cable battle squad) and we battled. He killed only one of mine with his Charizard, but I had sent Pikachu in right after the first one dropped, and Thunder attack messed him all up… paralyzed and everything. I was about to take out his best one… the very backbone of his damn squad… when the game froze.**

**The point was not to bring up two adults fighting over a children's game played over 10 years ago, the point was that while choking him partially unconscious I thought of doing this and it all just fell into place from there.**

**Don't judge me, I'm not insane… because I'm well aware of just how unbalanced I am.**

**And of course like always; I do not own Naruto or Pokémon.**

**Duh.**

**The No. 1 Hyperactive, Knucklehead Master**

**Chapter 1: A Special S-Rank Mission**

* * *

><p>"What do you mean you aren't going?" A tall man with long, spiky white hair shouted indignantly. He had a green kimono shirt on and green pants, and over the shirt was an open red vest. Red line facial markings sat underneath his eyes going directly down and he was thoroughly fired up from his current actions of lifting a young blonde boy in an orange jumpsuit with blue trim on the shoulders up by his collar, "I have to get you ready Naruto. I've already told you what's coming in three years."<p>

Said blonde boy, Naruto, had a scowl on his face, with three whisker-marks sitting on each cheek. His spiky blonde hair was held out of his face by way of a blue headband with a metal, leaf-insignia inscribed plate and as previously mentioned he wore a thick orange jumpsuit with a white collar and with blue on the front and back of the shoulders that had a pink whirlpool design on the centered back, "I can't just leave Ero-sennin. I can train here right?"

"Your buddy Sasuke won't be staying in just one place with Orochimaru." Jiraiya, or Ero-sennin, tried to argue back. Seriously, this kid was just one big headache after another, "He'll be moving from base to base all over every bit of Otogakure that there is while he's being trained. This is just what you do."

"What who does?"

"I don't know… but the point is, you're coming with me, and if you don't Tsunade'll make you."

And with that, both of them looked at the third person in the office, sitting behind her desk with a look of amused interest in her brown eyes. She had long blonde hair in two pigtails down her back, pink lipstick, and a small diamond marking on her forehead with an appearance that was far younger than her actual age. She wore a grey kimono blouse underneath an open green jacket that covered up her rather sizeable assets on her chest, but still left enough visible for anyone to see, "You're actually asking me to make him leave Jiraiya? What's the matter you old goat, you can't even convince your own apprentice to train with you?"

"Oh I'll train." Naruto replied before pointing down at the ground, "I'll train right here in Konoha. How am I supposed to become Hokage without even being here?" He then held the back of his head as Jiraiya had just struck him, "Ow! What the hell?"

"You idiot." Jiraiya then pointed right at Tsunade to illustrate a point, "What do you think she's been doing for the last damn decade before we went to go and get her back a few months ago?" Tsunade waved at him for added emphasis, "We're only going to be gone for a few years to whip your low-class genin ass into shape."

"I'm still not going." Naruto said stubbornly, turning away from Jiraiya with his arms crossed. And at this point it was starting to piss Tsunade off a bit too, as she got up and walked towards him with a look of intent on her face. Naruto figured he saw the face of the devil when he saw Tsunade's hand make the motion for a finger-flick and opened his mouth to comment before

It was purely done for Naruto's own well-being, but watching Naruto fly through the doors of the office at such a speed almost made Jiraiya panic until he realized that Tsunade would never really hurt the brat, "Whoa. That'll put him out cold for a few hours… it won't make him want to go any more than before when he wakes up though."

"Shizune!" Tsunade shouted for her assistant, watching as just outside the office a woman with short dark hair, wearing a black kimono looked down at the knocked out Naruto and up at Tsunade before shaking her head and picking the young ninja up to take him somewhere comfortable to wake up at later. With that being taken care of, Tsunade turned her attention back to Jiraiya, "I can't _make_ him go to train. It's not really a mission to send him on a training trip."

A nod came from Jiraiya until the proverbial lightbulb went off in his head, "Oh Tsunade-hime, I've got a little something for this. Just go with this and it'll work perfectly."

XxX

(Four Days Later – Tsunade's Office)

"A mission?" Naruto said questioningly as he stood in front of Tsunade again, this time giving her a very wide berth of space, "Wait, I thought you wanted to send me on a training trip with Ero-sennin. Why are you sticking me with this mission right now?"

Goodness, if this story was bought then Jiraiya was something of a genius. That was what Tsunade figured at least. With that mindset she launched into her and Jiraiya's worked out explanation of how this would work, "Well Naruto. Like I said, we're going to be sending you to a foreign land to gather intelligence and if possible study the wildlife. It's for the most part an uncharted area that we don't have much info on."

"Uncharted?" It seemed rather unbelievable to Naruto. How could anywhere in the world be uncharted? But then again, there were more important things going on than trying to explore things that had no bearing on shinobi life in the Elemental Nations. But still, if people lived in places like Yuki no Kuni then what the hell was any kind of excuse other than somewhere being inhospitable?

A shrug came from Tsunade, "It was discovered right before the outbreak of the Third Shinobi World War, but there was never any follow-up due to the war, the recovery afterwards, the entire Kyuubi debacle, trying to avert a war with Kumogakure… there were a bunch of reasons. But from the first trip a report came that there were many strange animals with high combat capabilities in this place. We want to see just what this place has to offer so we're sending you to recover intel and study the land's ecology."

That sounded damnably cool in Naruto's opinion. So he'd be a pioneer of sorts? He could just see his name being placed in history books. Yeah, then some other kids would have to remember useless facts about him and what he did for once instead of the other way around! Finally, justice!

And from there, Tsunade only sweetened the whole thing as far as he went, "It's very, very far away. But the people there speak our language, and with the distance you'll be travelling alone I can qualify this as an S-rank mission for you. It's pretty important potentially to Konoha and Hi no Kuni in general's economy. There could be a big boon if things work out well here."

No genin he knew of had an S-rank mission to their record. And all he had to do was go to some cool new place _that already had people_ and explore it and its creatures a bit? It was a no-brainer. This was the kind of stuff that legends were made of.

"Tsunade-baachan, I'll have that place all mapped out for you twice over in no time!" Naruto said with full confidence, a grin stretching across his face to convey his excitement, "There won't be anything you won't know about this place, I can guarantee you that!"

Tsunade raised an eyebrow, holding up a scroll with Naruto's exact mission specs more or likely within it, "So you accept the mission?"

It wasn't even worth asking, as Naruto couldn't have grabbed the scroll from her fast enough, thoughts of glory dancing through his head. Maybe if he did something groundbreaking they'd make him Hokage the second he came back? No, that was a child's fantasy… they'd just put him in line to take over when Tsunade stepped down… for sure. No doubt in his mind.

With the speed he took the mission scroll, Tsunade shook her head at the boy, "I'll take that as a yes." Naruto nodded rapidly and made to open the scroll until Tsunade loudly cleared her throat, "Don't open that here." The blonde boy stopped and stared at her confusedly, forcing her to explain, "This is an S-rank mission. Top secret. You really shouldn't even be getting a scroll in the first place, but you're just a genin and word of mouth isn't that reliable for you. Don't open that until you're on the ship to leave or until you arrive at your location."

Oh, of course. That made sense. S-rank missions were super important and exact specifics of them were clandestine by nature. Kakashi had told him and the rest of Team 7 that each one of his that he had undertaken in the past were need-to-know only for those that absolutely needed to know. He couldn't even tell them about any of the missions since they weren't relevant to their survival.

"I won't let you down Tsunade-baachan." Naruto said with conviction in his voice and determination in his eyes, "You can definitely count on me for this. But… why did you choose me in the first place? Why not someone else?"

"It's very simple when you think about it Naruto." Tsunade said with a smile on her face as she decided to explain her reasoning, "You have a summoning contract with the toads and you've got a good rapport with the boss summon Gamabunta. Summons are rare, and you're one of the few in the village with experience when it comes to dealing with… how should I say, difficult creatures. You're also pretty good at establishing relationships with people that are willing to give you a chance. Both of those things are going to be very important for this."

So she was basically telling Naruto, in his own mind of course, that he was the man and that he was the only one appropriate for this incredible mission. Oh he knew Tsunade loved him and recognized his special set of skills. All the yelling and arguments had to be her way of testing his mettle all of that time. Kami, he loved that old lady… her and her ever-present transformation that made her look young.

"This is going to be so cool!" Naruto shouted, jumping and pumping a fist into the air, "Alright, I'm gonna start packing right now!" He told Tsunade before turning to run out of the office and the building altogether.

Tsunade looked after him with a smile as he disappeared from her sight, "Good luck brat. I'll leave Jiraiya to deal with the fallout later since this was his stupid idea in the first place."

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Port on the Shores of Hi no Kuni)

Three days of preparation for his trip and two days of travelling across the country by his lonesome led Naruto to a ship in the harbor that had been requested to take Naruto with them on their voyage to this new place. Apparently they wanted to set out to make their own bit of fortune trading goods as well. And Konoha was footing the bill for taking Naruto across the ocean as well so the crew and captain gladly took the boy onboard.

"This is kind of exciting." Naruto said to himself, leaning over the side of the ship with a huge grin on his face as the horns of the ship went off, signifying their departure, "I've never been on a ship by myself before." He then started chuckling, "I can't wait to get there. I wonder what it's like. Nobody in Konoha's gonna know but me though."

"…And me too."

Hearing the familiar voice that came from directly behind him, Naruto almost fell over the edge of the ship but was caught by the back of his trousers and hauled back on deck. Naruto turned towards his savior and pointed accusingly at him, "Ero-sennin! What are you doing here?"

Ignoring Naruto's fully extended arm and index finger, Jiraiya lowered the boy's hand and gave him a deadpan look, "You thought that Tsunade was just going to stick you on a boat and send you off to a place you don't know the first thing about… by yourself?"

An indignant snort came from Naruto who took offense to that question, "Hey, I'm a survivor Ero-sennin. I'm tough. As long as these weird animal things that Tsunade-baachan wants me to check out aren't as big as Gaara's Shukaku I'll be alright."

"Couldn't tell you if they were or not to be honest with you." Jiraiya said, rubbing his chin, "The report was from before you were ever even born, back during the last war." A nod came from Naruto, having heard the story already from Tsunade, "You see, we sent out a few ships towards Mizu no Kuni to look for allies like Kirigakure to help us in the war against Iwagakure. The war wasn't going so hot at the time and we were in the shop for friends like no one's business. Well a nasty storm hit that lasted for forty days straight."

Naruto gulped at hearing that. Forty days? How did ships survive on the waters for more than a month in horrible conditions like that? Even for a dummy like Naruto, it didn't seem possible. He had been on a ship that had been hit with a storm for just one day in the past during a mission. It was one of the most miserable experiences of his life, "That sounds horrible Ero-sennin. What happened?"

Jiraiya lifted two fingers and continued his story, "Two of the four ships dispatched went down in the storm… but two made it through. Apparently they followed a very large, very strange silver bird that seemed to be flying through the squall with no problems at all, but eventually they lost it and just kept going in that direction as they had no compass by this point, having lost it in the storm. It took two more weeks and a near mutiny, but eventually they made it to land… unfamiliar land."

"Wow…" By this point, Naruto was sitting on the deck paying rapt attention and unknowingly feeding Jiraiya's ego as a master orator and storyteller by his interest in the tale from the past, "So what happened then?"

Jiraiya paused to draw out the tension of his tale before grinning and divulging the rest of the story, "They restocked and went home." Naruto's reaction of falling backwards hard on the deck prompted Jiraiya to burst out in laughter, "Yeah, apparently the people there had never heard of Konohagakure, any kind of war, or even the Elemental Nations in general. So while they amassed the money in that currency to restock on everything there was quite a little bit of exploring done… by one person more than others, and apparently the animals that Tsunade's sending you to gather info on were revealed. Minato wouldn't shut up about it when he got back. Kushina had to hit him to make his stop."

"Minato?" Naruto said questioningly with a curious tilt of his head, "Who's that supposed to be?"

Fighting the urge to palm his face, Jiraiya poked Naruto on the top of the head thrice, "The Yondaime Hokage kid." Naruto's eyes went wide and Jiraiya grinned, "Yep, the last guy from Konoha or even Hi no Kuni in general to go all the way out to where we're going just so happened to be your favorite Hokage."

What a mindblower. So he was literally walking in the footsteps of his hero. That was so absurdly awesome, he couldn't wait to brag back to his friends in Konoha about what _he _was doing, "Yeah… did I die when Tsunade-baachan flicked me through that door last week because this mission is totally heaven-sent."

The kid liked what he was hearing so far, and that warmed Jiraiya's heart. That Naruto was so fired up to be doing something associated with the Yondaime Hokage. So Jiraiya figured to keep stoking the flame, "This was back before he took the seat though, obviously. And he couldn't write a report for shit. He had all of those stories in his head but he wasn't exactly the best at expressing them or writing them out. No one knew what the hell he was talking about. I guess eloquent communication couldn't be passed down from teacher to pupil eh?"

"So wait. Why are these guys going then?" Naruto asked, looking around at the ship full of sailors that were busy making sure the early stages of the voyage went smoothly, "Can't they trade in the Elemental Nations easier than this?"

One of the younger sailors with short brown hair wearing a bandanna on his head heard Naruto and let out a small laugh, "Yeah, we probably could. But it's kind of supposed to be safer too because of the lack of pirates and shinobi villages and everything. The captain's done this trip four times over the last fifteen years and he loves the place. I think he'd live there if there wasn't so much interest back home in goods from this new place. I've never been, but I've heard about it and I'm really excited myself."

Only four times in fifteen years? Really? That didn't sound right, "Well is this place really that hard to find?"

"Nah." The young sailor said, pointing towards the front of the ship, "Just head east, east, east. That's what the captain says. Allllll the way east." He said, drawing out the 'l's, "It's kind of easy, it's just really far and there's no place to restock or rest until we get there."

Something in the back of Naruto's mind was just prodding at him to ask the most obvious question present, "Now when you say far…" Naruto started to say, furrowing his brow in though, "Exactly how far do you mean? What exactly is far when you're talking about this place?"

"Let's see…" The sailor said, tapping his chin in thought as he seemed to be doing math in his head, "If we're blessed with good weather and fair winds going our way we should get there in sixty days give or take."

"Oh." Naruto said, nodding in understanding before it took a bit for what was just said to sink in fully, "Wait, what? Sixty days! That's like two months-!"

"-If we're lucky!" The sailor said cheerfully before returning to his work on the deck, leaving Naruto with a quite bewildered and gobsmacked look on his face that Jiraiya wished he had a camera for.

"Two months…" Naruto said in a haunted voice before turning to look desperately over the serenely moving waves, "Oh man… what am I going to do for two whole months on a freaking ship? This sucks."

"Ahem." Clearing his throat, Jiraiya made his presence felt once again to speak up, "Even though you technically could do it now that we're at sea, I think you should wait until we land to open and read your mission scroll from Tsunade. You have to burn S-rank mission orders and commit them to memory immediately after reading them for privacy purposes. Do you really think you're going to remember your exact orders for two months of looking at nothing but water?"

Naruto grimaced at the thought and shook his head, "Good point. I'm not risking that mess, dattebayo."

Clapping his hands once in a positive manner, Jiraiya then placed an arm around Naruto's shoulder, "I think I should bring up the fact that now would be a perfect time for me to get cracking on whipping your scrawny ass into shape. Agreed?" A grin threatened to split Naruto's face as Jiraiya ruffled his hair, "Now since there are no women here this is all about you, and no one else but you has my full attention. I want you to give me one-hundred percent!"

"You've got it Ero-sennin!"

"…Also, do not destroy parts of the ship!"

"Um… you've got it Ero-sennin!"

"…I will also require periodic viewings of your Oiroke no Jutsu (Sexy Jutsu) and monthly viewings of your Haremu no Jutsu (Harem Jutsu)!"

"Not a chance in hell!"

"*sigh*…I flew too close to the sun and got burned."

XxX

(Two and a Half Months Later)

It got hot while out at sea. Warmer than Naruto had even been used to in the usually very nice temperature that always existed in Hi no Kuni. Out there he couldn't wear his jacket anymore because it was so thick. He had to switch to his lighter clothes to cool down. Also the fact that Jiraiya had almost destroyed his favorite jacket contributed to his change.

He still wore his blue shinobi sandals and his Konoha headband, but now he wore orange shorts instead of his trousers, kunai pouch still attached to his right thigh. He wore an orange sleeveless zip-up vest with a high collar, and underneath that he had on a blue short-sleeved shirt in addition to the white tape he wore around his wrists.

Taking a break from his training, Naruto had climbed up one of the masts to get a good view of his surroundings, sticking to it just underneath the crow's nest with one hand and one foot as he had momentarily borrowed a pair of binoculars from the person in the crow's nest to get a good look around. The young blonde let out a loud yawn when he spotted something on the horizon, "Oh hey. Yo Haruo! Do you see that?"

The bandanna wearing sailor that Naruto had met on his first day aboard rolled his eyes and shook his head amusedly at his younger shinobi friend, "Well seeing as how you just now spotted whatever it is you're seeing and you have my binoculars I'll wager a guess that it's way too far for me to see without them… so no, I can't see anything."

"Smartass…" Naruto muttered before throwing the binoculars back up to Haruo, "Here, check it out. Am I seeing things again or what?"

Catching his seeing device back, Haruo placed them to his eyes and looked through them, grinning when he located what Naruto had thought he had seen, "For once Little Spike you aren't losing your shit." He said, leaning over and giving Naruto a good-natured ruffle of his hair that got Naruto to growl at him. Haruo chuckled before cupping his hands to his mouth to shout to everyone else on the ship, "Land ho! Land ho! Straight ahead!"

With a grin on his face, Naruto skillfully slid and jumped down the mast, finally swinging his way down on a rope pirate-style, before landing on the deck and taking off to find Jiraiya who was probably inside. Naruto ducked and dodged out of the way of the sailors, making it inside and reaching the crew's barracks where he and Naruto were granted a bunk to stay. It didn't take him long to reach the large white-haired man who was laying in bed fully-clothed but looking under the weather for whatever reason.

"Ero-sennin!" Naruto said, the twelve year old shaking Jiraiya to get his attention, "Come on, get your lazy old butt up. Up and at 'em, let's go already!"

"Is that you Naruto." Jiraiya said, rolling over in his bed to face Naruto with squinted eyes, smiling weakly once he got sight of him, "Hey kid… *cough* sorry, but I don't think ol' Jiraiya's going to be with you too much longer."

Why did he look so out of it? He didn't understand, he had just seen Jiraiya that morning and he had been doing just fine, "What are you talking about Ero-sennin? Stop messing around and get up already. Just get up." Naruto shook Jiraiya again, a bit of fear creeping into his voice.

"*cough* It's no good kid. My time… ah, it's too late."

"What are you talking about? Tell me already! If there's something you need we can get it! What do you need?"

"I need…"

"Yeah?"

"I need…"

"Come on and say it already! You're not dying on me you quitter!"

Jiraiya shut his eyes fully, looking serene and near a peaceful death before his eyes snapped open and a lecherous look overtook his features, "I need a lady! A fine one! A total knockout! I'm talking a perfect ten here brat!" He shouted, jumping to his feet and scaring the hell out of Naruto with his speed, "Two months and some change, are you kidding me? A man like the insatiable sexy Jiraiya hasn't gone two months without contact with the most luscious of the fairer sex since he first found his passion in life! I'm going through withdrawal! If I don't see the finest of ladies and soon I'm gonna pop! I'll die of blue balls kid!"

"I will murder you!" Naruto yelled, jumping up and beginning to throttle Jiraiya with his bare hands, "All of that dramatic, 'my time is up' crap because you haven't gotten your rocks off in two months! Damn you to the depths of hell old man! I came down here to tell you that we're almost at land!"

"Land?" Jiraiya said, completely ignoring the fact that Naruto was choking him as if it wasn't even happening despite Naruto's best efforts to cut off his supply of oxygen, "Land means beaches, beaches means swimsuits, swimsuits means bikinis, bikinis means WOMEN!" He couldn't have grabbed Naruto by the back of his collar fast enough as he threw him away and grabbed his telescope from inside his vest, "I'm coming ladies! These eyes will appreciate your lovely sights and then some!" He then disappeared onto the deck by way of a Shunshin.

Naruto pulled himself off of the bed that he had been thrown onto and held his head, "Damn pervert…"

XxX

Naruto stepped off of the ship alongside Jiraiya after they had made port, Naruto had to keep a hold on the man like he was a dog on a leash to keep him from ditching Naruto for the nearest pair of boobs in a swimsuit that walked by them, "Where the hell are we?" The young blonde asked, looking around. If this was the place he was meant to explore it was awfully small wasn't it? It was just an island.

The place was a total beach resort town. Lots of places for tourists to spend money (But Naruto's money from the Elemental Nations was no good there), centered entirely around the seaside where the prettiest views were, the best hotels, the best stores, everything.

But at the middle of the island there was a volcano. What, were these people completely nuts to live that close to an active volcano? What was wrong with them? That was just entirely unsafe all around.

Sick of wandering around not knowing what was what, Naruto sighed and finally decided to suck up his pride and ask for some kind of help. The closest person he could find was a rather pretty lady wearing a bikini top and a long skirt around her waist with sandals on her feet, "Excuse me miss." Naruto said, tapping her on the back to get her attention as she was talking to other women, "Could I ask you some questions really quick?"

Turning around to face him, the lady looked down and gave Naruto a smile, as did the others she had been speaking with. Meanwhile Jiraiya had gotten out of their field of vision and happened to be jotting things down in his notebook. Either that or he was doodling what he thought they looked like with their skirts off, "Well yes sweetie, I can try. What do you need?"

Oh, well that was easy. In the Elemental Nations no one really liked being talked to by a stranger, especially by him, so this was a very welcome change. Naruto returned her smile tenfold and spoke up, "Well I was just wondering where I am. See, me and my sensei came here on a ship from a place really far away called the Elemental Nations… but nobody ever told me what this town was called or even what this country was called."

"Hmm, I've never heard of any Elemental Nations." The woman said, getting equally befuddled shrugs from her companions, "Well I can answer your questions though. Right now you're on Cinnabar Island. It's a part of the country of Kanto."

"Kanto and Cinnabar Island…" Naruto said, testing the sound of the places in his mouth before nodding and committing them to memory, "Okay, cool. Thanks a lot oneesan, that helped a lot. Now maybe I can start my mission." He waved goodbye to the women and turned on his heels to run off and explore the place a bit.

The ladies all waved back at him as he got further and further away, "That little kid was so cute." One of the women gushed once Naruto was out of sight.

"I know, I just wanted to pet those marks on his cheeks, just like whiskers."

At this point Jiraiya made his presence known, seeing an opening present that a blind man couldn't have missed, "I'd like to thank you ladies for helping out my beloved student the way you did." He said smoothly before placing a hand over his heart, "He and I are foreigners, visiting this land for the first time. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart I'd like to thank you for being so kind to him."

"It was no problem." One of the girls said brightly, letting Jiraiya put an arm around her shoulder, "He was the cutest thing I've ever seen. My friend's Jigglypuff didn't have anything on him at all." In response one of the women puffed her cheeks out indignantly.

Meanwhile Jiraiya's brain took a second to focus on something else, 'Jigglypuff? What in the world?' Then he realized that these women were comfortable with his being there… and Naruto had left him alone. Finally, 'Oh that can wait until later… there are more important things to worry about at the moment.' "Ladies. I'm sorry, I never introduced myself. My student, the one you just spoke to, his name is Uzumaki Naruto."

"Aww…" They all said at once, remembering the orange-clad preteen they had just met barely even three minutes ago, "Even his name is cute."

"Yes… yes… but then there's me." Jiraiya said, thanking the heavens that Naruto could leave an impression. And now it was time for the knockout, 'You girls are never going to forget this one!' He thought to himself before breaking out into a spontaneous one-legged hopping dance on one leg, "Even the entire ocean's width and depth cannot contain my might! No horizon is too far for these experienced eyes to see the end of!"

By now he had not only the full attention of the awe-stricken women, he had the attention of multiple passersby as well. All that was left was the finish!

Jiraiya bit his thumb to draw blood and made his hand-seals that were instinctual at this point, "From the land of the elements he has come to share his greatness abroad! This is the Grand Toad Sage, Jiraiya, at your service!" He finished with a flourish, slamming his palm onto the ground.

But nothing happened.

After a second, Jiraiya lifted his hand off of the ground and stared at it, "What the-?" He repeated the final process and slammed his palm on the ground again, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!" Again, nothing, 'Oh this could potentially be really bad.'

"What do you think he's doing?"

"I don't know. He said he was foreign, so maybe it's some kind of native greeting dance."

"Well it's nice to meet you too Jiraiya!"

Well it didn't work the way he had hoped, but the women still found him interesting. Too bad for once Jiraiya's mind was not on the women, but on his totally failed attempt at summoning a toad, 'Oh this is bad, this is bad, this is _bad_…'

Nothing short of a topless beach could get his mind off of this little dilemma.

XxX

(With Naruto – Elsewhere on Cinnabar Island)

"Erm…" Naruto grunted, walking around and scratching his head, "Crap I'm totally lost. And I lost Ero-sennin to top it all off." Oh well, it wasn't that big of a deal either way. All he had to do to solve either problem was to get to the outside of the island and just run around until he found the right port or found the right spot on the beach where Jiraiya was perving on women.

Right now he was trying to get his lay of the land. Eventually he'd have to go back to the ship, but for the time being he was going to explore around and see what he could see. Eventually Naruto came upon a big, big house. A mansion if you would. That was weird. The entire place was a tourist trap. Who actually _lived_ in a normal house in a place like this? It was enclosed by a big brick wall so it had to be important at one time or another.

Actually, once he got a closer look at it, it was revealed to be quite badly damaged from a fire. So why was it still standing then? Maybe it was culturally relevant or something, he didn't know. He wasn't even from that country. Hell, he wasn't from that continent in general.

"Look at this thing."

"Yeah, what's it doing out here? Is it wild?"

"No way, then it would be inside of the mansion, not here outside. It's even outside of the gate."

"It looks really beaten up though."

Naruto followed the voices and rounded a corner to find a group of kids his age give or take a year standing in front of the iron gate looking down at something. Jogging up to them, Naruto saw them looking at a dog.

It was a little dog, a puppy. A puppy with bright orange fur that had black stripes. On its chest/belly, tail, and the little tuft of hair on top of its head the fur was a cream color. It had two claws on its front feet and no claws on its back feet. Much like he had overheard it looked quite beaten up, like it had been in a fight recently that had gone bad for it. None of the kids had sticks or were tormenting it so it wasn't them.

"Hey, what's with this dog?" Naruto asked as he reached the group of kids. The puppy was laying down on the ground its eyes staring daggers at Naruto and the kids, but otherwise doing nothing but resting, "It's weird. What kind of breed is it?" He'd never seen a dog like that in his life.

"It's a Growlithe man." One of the kids said, "Tons of them live in that mansion right there. Nobody really goes in there though, it's dangerous. You've got to be a real badass trainer to take a chance on going in there."

"For sure." Another boy said, "This one's kind of small though. I think it's young. Why's it out here though?"

"It's just a baby." Naruto said, moving closer to it as the little dog growled softly, "I've never heard of a Growlithe-breed dog before. Are there a lot of them in Kanto?" He asked, slowly moving towards the thing and not breaking eye contact so that he didn't spook it. At least it wasn't a cat.

He hated cats. Damn Tora. Damn Tora to the depths of hell.

"You can find them from place to place, but the only place you can find any on Cinnabar is in that mansion."

"Cool." Naruto said with a smile. So a breeder either lived in that mansion or kept these dogs in there, "Kind of like an Inuzuka eh?" He cracked as he got close enough to reach out to the Growlithe in an attempt to pet it, "Hey. How are you doing? My name's Naruto. You okay buddy?"

"*growl* Growl!"

Growlithe barked out and let loose a barrage of fiery sparks from its mouth, hitting Naruto in the face and knocking him on his backside as he rolled around on the ground holding the spot where he took the attack. The kids all jumped back, fearing that they had just watched someone get maimed, but Naruto just sat up with light burns on his face, "Ow! What the hell was that?" He pointed at the Growlithe accusingly, "Did that thing just shoot bits of fire at me?"

The kids all looked at each other and shrugged. He didn't know what a Growlithe was at first so how would he have known anything else about it. He clearly hadn't seen one before, "Yeah. Growlithe's a fire-type Pokémon. That was Ember. It really _is_ a baby then huh? It's too weak to do something bigger like a Flamethrower."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Naruto sputtered out, wiping the soot from his face and bringing the whole conversation to a halt, "What's a Pokémon? Is that what you guys call dogs in this country?"

"No! The Growlithe is a Pokémon! Keep up dude, duh!"

"Duh yourself!" Snapped Naruto with a tick mark on his head, "That's a dog. It's a weird fire-breathing dog, but I've seen weirder stuff before! I don't know what a Pokémon is. I'm not from Kanto."

All three young boys looked at each other and then back at Naruto as if to ask if her were really serious. Naruto was starting to get tired of the uneasy silence and his thoughts strayed back to the weird fire dog that was staring him down still.

Naruto got close to it again and crouched down in front of it, locking his bright blue eyes with the Growlithe's own and staring it down without flinching. Ember be damned.

But then all of a sudden, Naruto remembered the words that Tsunade had given him on Kanto before he had ever even left Konoha two months ago.

"_But from the first trip a report came that there were many strange animals with high combat capabilities in this place."_

Well breathing fire counted as high combat capabilities by any shinobi's standards and then the dominoes started falling into place for Naruto, "Oi." He said, getting the attention of the kids observing him and the Growlithe, "So do all of these 'Pokémon' have powers like this guy here?"

"Kind of." One of the boys answered, scratching his scalp as he thought of how to answer, "I mean, there's all kinds of different Pokémon. A Growlithe is just one species. There are flying birds like Pidgeys, and there are the Tentacools that you can always find just off-shore. But they do all have abilities and stuff." It was hard to fathom that there was someone that didn't know about Pokémon. But here he stood, crouching down in front of an ornery, injured Growlithe, staring it down like he didn't just get his face singed moments ago.

Naruto just kept staring into the Growlithe's eyes and nodded at the answer. That was what he figured, "So do any of you know first aid to help this thing out?" He asked, getting silence as a no by default, "…Okay, well is there some kind of vet or a hospital for this thing we can go to? Those bruises and wounds look painful."

"Ah there's a Pokémon Center not too far away from here." One boy said, getting Naruto to turn his head towards him in a deadpan stare of confusion. The boy palmed his face and revised his previous response, "It's a hospital… for Pokémon… like the Growlithe puppy."

"Oh. Great." Naruto said before reaching out to pick the Growlithe up. It started growling again until the boys grabbed Naruto's arms just in time to save him from getting bit by the fire dog, "What's with this thing? Why's it still fighting when it's hurt? I'm trying to help you, you stupid mutt!"

"It's _wild_!" A boy said, letting go of Naruto's arm, "It's not just gonna let you pick it up stupid, no matter how hurt it is! It's territorial, and you're right in its territory. If you want to help it you're going to have to catch it."

"Right." Naruto said, cracking his knuckles before moving in to pick up the Growlithe again, "Which is what I'm trying to do. It's not like it's running away."

"No damn it! It's like you're three or something…" A boy that had grown impatient with Naruto's lack of general Pokémon knowledge grabbed Naruto's wrist and opened his hand, placing a small orb into it, "Here, use that, a Poke Ball." He said, pressing on the little button in the middle of it to make the ball suddenly expand to fit Naruto's hand neatly.

A black horizontal border separated the orb into two conjoined segments; a red top half and a white bottom half. Naruto tossed it up and down in his hand experimentally before a sudden shout from the same boy jolted him out of his own world, "Throw the damn thing already!" He shouted before regaining his temper and explaining further, "Usually you have to weaken a Pokémon before you're guaranteed to catch it in a Poke Ball, but this Growlithe is already really hurt so that's not necessary. So just throw this at it and that should be that."

Taking in all of this information and hoping he didn't forget any of it later as it sounded very useful, Naruto locked eyes with the Growlithe that was staring back at him just the same as always, "Alright. I'm gonna get you better in no time!" Naruto said as he threw the ball and hit the Growlithe right on top of the head, bouncing off into the air and hovering for a moment.. Right before Naruto's eyes the Growlithe seemed to be converted into energy as it got sucked right into the ball that closed and sealed shut, falling to the ground, "Whoa." He said as he walked over to pick it up.

"Wait!" A boy held Naruto back as the ball started rolling back and forth, the button in the center flashing red for a moment before a small noise emitted from the object, "Okay, now you can pick it up. That's your Growlithe now."

Shrugging it off, Naruto walked over and picked up the Poke Ball before turning to the boy that gave it to him, "Hey, wait. Why'd you give it to me? You could have just done that yourself."

"I didn't want to catch it for myself just to take it to the Pokémon Center. I can't take care of a Growlithe, I already have a Pokémon and I'm not a trainer. I'm not strong enough to really have more."

"So this Growlithe is mine now?" Naruto said questioningly, "To take care of and all of that?"

"Yep, you can use it to compete in battles, fight with wild Pokémon to try and catch those too, or you can just hang out with it. It's yours. You can even let it go later for good if you want to." The boy that had spoken then pointed into a direction, "Uh, turn down that road and keep going until you reach the main street. From there head west. The Pokémon Center isn't far from main street, you can see it as clear as day; a big red roof and a big 'P' on it. All Pokémon Centers have a big 'P' on them. Good luck." All of the boys smiled at the weird kid they had just met as he seemed to still be taking all of this in.

Still looking at the Poke Ball that housed his new Growlithe, Naruto finally let a smile grow on his face, "You're mine to take care of Growlithe. You and me are going to be a kickass Ninja/Pokémon team, dattebayo." He looked at the kids that had helped him out and grinned at them, "Thanks guys, hope we meet up again some day." With that, he jumped towards the closest rooftop and began heading in the previously indicated direction.

The three boys just stared after Naruto with wide eyes as if they hadn't really seen what had just occurred, "Did that guy just jump fifteen feet off of the ground?" The other two nodded, "Who the hell was that guy?"

"I think he said his name was Naruto."

"Weird… but that was seriously cool."

XxX

(A Few Minutes Later – Cinnabar Island Main Street)

Late afternoon denizens of Cinnabar Island were treated to the sight of a blonde kid jumping rooftop gaps like cracks in the sidewalk as Naruto travelled skyway-style to the Pokémon Center that he eventually came to a stylish landing in front of. He looked around, wondering why everyone was staring at him until he remembered that there weren't any ninja in Kanto. An embarrassed blush marked his cheeks as he walked through the automatic doors.

It was a big place on the inside with linoleum floors, lots of planters set for aesthetic effect, many chairs as people seemed to be waiting around and chatting. Food as well as tons of people were eating while they were talking and waiting. Naruto's stomach growled loudly, but he ignored that, walking to what he assumed was the front desk. Behind it was a cheerful looking woman with pink hair that was fixed in a style that had two loops going down the back. On her head sat nurse's hat and she wore an apron dress with a pink shirt underneath it, "Hello. Can I help you?"

"Yes." Naruto said, fishing his only Poke Ball out of his pocket and holding it out, "Uh, I have a Growlithe here, it's pretty hurt. Can you help it out? I found it outside of that mansion that's closer to the middle of town."

"You went to Pokémon Mansion?" The nurse asked Naruto as she took his Poke Ball and put it on some kind of machine, "That's rather dangerous." She saw Naruto's eyes locked firmly on the machine and gave him a reassuring smile, "Oh, this is just for a basic check over your Growlithe." The machine began to kick on and an outline of the Growlithe's frame came onto a screen for her and Naruto to see, "Hmm, Growlithe around here and especially in the mansion aren't this low level. This one is only a level 6." She turned to see a blank expression on Naruto's face and giggled, "A newbie are you?"

Naruto grinned sheepishly, "Yeah, I don't really know… well, anything about Pokémon. I just captured this Growlithe because it was hurt and wouldn't let me take it here for help."

"That's very kind of you." The Nurse said before turning to call out to something, "Chansey!" A pink egg-shaped creature with stubby arms, stubby legs, a short tail, a pouch on its front with an egg in it, and three hair-looking growths on each side of its head came out to take Naruto's Growlithe's Poke Ball to another room, "Not to worry. Chansey will have your Growlithe all fixed up in no time. But in the meantime, here." She reached behind the desk and handed Naruto a small guide, "If you don't know much about caring for Pokémon or Pokémon in general you should read this while you wait."

"Ugh… reading." Naruto said with a grimace before resigning himself to his fate, "Okay. Thank you…"

"You can call me Nurse Joy."

"Ah. Thank you Nurse Joy." Naruto said, before pointing to himself, "I'm Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto. Nice to meet you." Nurse Joy gave Naruto a small bow as Naruto walked off to find an open place to sit down and wait for his Pokémon to be healed. He picked a spot on a long couch and cracked the book open, figuring he should at least know how to keep from either killing his Growlithe or getting himself killed, "The elemental types of Pokémon… water, fire, grass, ground…"

XxX

(Hours Later)

A sleeping Naruto, leaning back with his head hanging over the back of his seat with his book placed over his face, snored away until the back of his chair took a kick that stirred Naruto from his slumber. The book slid off of Naruto's face to find that it was Jiraiya, "Oh Ero-sennin. I wondered where you went." He said before yawning, "Is my Growlithe okay yet?"

"I'm assuming that's a Pokémon." Jiraiya said, getting a nod from Naruto, "You have one already?" Another nod, "Kami kid, we haven't even been in the country for a whole twelve hours yet and you're picking up the wildlife." Naruto grinned cheekily, getting Jiraiya to roll his eyes, "I've been looking for you all day. I've got something important to tell you on the way back to the ship. We're setting off."

"Okay." Naruto said, stashing his book into his pocket and jumping up from his chair to head back over to the desk where he had been before his nap, "One sec, I've got to get my Pokémon back from Nurse Joy." Bounding up to the desk with a big grin, he spoke to the nurse from earlier, "Is my Growlithe alright?"

Once again, Nurse Joy giggled at Naruto's demeanor before handing him a particular Poke Ball, "Yes. It just needed some light treatment and some rest. It's a male Growlithe by the way in case it mattered to you."

It didn't, but it was good to know either way. Naruto nodded and looked up at Joy with his big bright eyes, "Thanks a lot. How much money do I owe you?" He asked before something set in and he frowned heavily, "…Because I don't have any money…"

"It's free. Pokémon Centers provide a free service for trainers and their Pokémon." Joy informed him with a bright smile, "If your Pokémon ever need help you can bring them to any center in Kanto and they'll assist you. That was in the book."

Naruto's face turned to one of embarrassment at that topic being brought up, "I… didn't get that far?"

"How far did you get?"

"How far was the part that you're talking about?"

"…The tenth page."

"Oh. Well, I didn't get that far."

XxX

"What do you mean we can't summon?" Naruto asked as he and Jiraiya walked back to the ship in the sunset, "I don't get it." He simply had to see for himself as he bit his own thumb to draw blood and did the hand-seals before slamming his hand on the ground, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!" Nothing happened of course, "Aah! Can I still do my other jutsu?" Naruto wondered in panic as he formed his cross finger seal, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" In a puff of smoke, a Naruto clone appeared at the walking genin's side getting both Naruto and the clone to sigh in relief before it dispelled.

"Yes our other jutsu work, we just can't summon." Jiraiya informed him. Things weren't as grim as he first figured, he just couldn't summon some amphibious backup. But what was with the block on summoning? He had to figure this out and he had a way as to how he'd pull that off in a short while. He just needed to test something first once they reached the Kanto mainland.

While temporarily losing his connection to the toads was a major blow, Naruto had made a new friend that day that he hadn't introduced yet, "Oh, my Pokémon. You haven't met him yet. Here, check it out." He said, reaching into his pocket to pull out the Poke Ball that he threw forward, with a popping noise and in a stream of white energy Growlithe appeared, sitting on his haunches and looking at Naruto and Jiraiya curiously, looking a hundred times healthier now, "Hey buddy, are you still all mean like you were at the mansion?" Naruto asked, stooping down again.

The puppy Pokémon's response was to jump at Naruto in order to knock him to the ground and begin licking his face, getting Naruto to laugh and try to push the fire breathing dog away from him.

"A dog." Jiraiya said, staring at the scene before him. Eventually he just chalked this up to just another day in the life and started walking back to the ship, "Come on brat, don't fall behind and get lost because those sailors don't wait. You and your mutt get into gear so we can get going."

Naruto and the Growlithe stopped their interaction with Naruto looking at the dog and rubbing him on the head, "It's alright boy. That's just Ero-sennin. He's all cranky right now because he hasn't seen boobs in two months and he had to spend all day at a beach worrying about summoning the toads instead of being a perv." He couldn't really blame him though. No toad summoning, was troubling news. He didn't know that there were places where he couldn't summon. What made Cinnabar Island so special about it?

But with the Growlithe, he committed the name 'Ero-sennin' to memory when it came to the big man with white hair that seemed to be friends with his trainer. And why did the back of Ero-sennin's long spiky hair look like it was teasing him? It was thoroughly pissing the Growlithe off and he decided to do something about it as he charged right at Jiraiya's backside, mouth open.

"Growwwwlithe! *snap*"

"Aah! The damn dog bit me in my ass!"

Naruto got up off of the ground and started running after Jiraiya and his new Pokémon before they lost him in the streets, "I guess I'll call you Ranbouen (Violent Blaze)…" He said, speaking mostly to himself as he sped up to catch up to his teacher and his aggressive Growlithe.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe): Lvl 6  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire).

* * *

><p><strong>New story born from the spontaneity of a random brawl. See? All those shots I routinely take to the head are good for something besides killing my brain cells quickly. I always knew my fighting was constructive instead of destructive.<strong>

**So wait until the next few chapters for things to pan out and be explained clearer for those that are confused, though I don't know what there is to be confused about aside from the obvious mystery.**

**This story isn't really one to take seriously, as I'm saying that there won't be many dark tones and whatnot. I'm not going to try to make this something it's not because come on dude, it's Pokemon. It's just a story for fun so that I don't burn out writing the more serious stuff. That's all I wanted to say about this.  
><strong>

**Later peeps, Kenchi out.**


	2. A Matter of Fact

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. If I did then you wouldn't be reading this right now. I'd be relaxing in the Canadian wilderness counting my money, snowboarding, and training with Georges St. Pierre and all of the other famous Canadian Mixed Martial Arts because I like training to fight, I'd have the resources to move to Canada and to afford training in the best places, and I'd be thoroughly bored in my early retirement after conquering the world.

**Chapter 2: A Matter of Fact**

* * *

><p>"Come on brat, show me what you've got!" Jiraiya ordered from Naruto, facing off from him on the open portion of deck provided to the two of them by the sailors on their ship for a spar, "Let the fruits of my tireless work be shown!"<p>

Naruto rolled his eyes but did as his teacher requested of him, "If you're asking for it you've got it Ero-sennin!" So fast, his fingers weren't even seen making the hand-seal, Naruto created over a dozen Kage Bunshin who all scattered across the ship trying to disorient Jiraiya amid the cheering of the sailors that were given a break to watch Naruto try and put his training to practical use.

Before it was too late to act, Jiraiya formed a few hand-seals and activated his next jutsu, "Hari Jizo (Needle Jizo)!" Jiraiya's long spiky white hair grew around his entire body and hardened up just as Naruto's clones launched shuriken of multiple sizes at him. Instead of harming him they just bounced off of his hard, sharp hair as if it was made of metal, "Ho ho! That's dangerous you know."

"Shut up!" The clones all barked in unison before renewing their attack with a different approach. Looking as if they would all rush in to attack, Jiraiya was about to chide Naruto for his lack of strategy that he figured he had beaten into his head when going up against a superior opponent by then, but that all changed when he saw a puff of smoke by his feet. Two of Naruto's large shuriken transformed into the boy himself, looking as if they were going to prepare a Rasengan.

"Hari Jigoku (Needle Hell)!" Needles shot out from Jiraiya's hair and hit not only the two Narutos that were preparing an attack, but the Narutos all over. Even the sailors had to take some cover to avoid being hit by the jutsu as they ducked behind crates, barrels, anything they could find, "Oops. Sorry." He said sheepishly before noticing that he hadn't hit the real Naruto. Both of the two preparing the Rasengan had been clones.

Damn little bastard was getting better at using those clones to wear down the competition without putting himself into harm's way. Apparently getting beaten up periodically for two months taught him to look before he leapt so to speak. So where was he?

Looking around the deck, Jiraiya's eyes rested on Naruto's recently obtained Growlithe who was obediently sitting off to the side amongst the sailors, just observing the match between the two, panting excitedly at the action. The brat's dog would have to know where he was. Dogs had some kind of bond with their masters that had them seek them out all the time didn't they? He had to be of some help, "Where is he boy?" Jiraiya said in a patronizing baby voice, "Come on, where's the brat? Where's your owner?" He said, turning around to point across the ship hoping the dog would back when he pinpointed the right spot.

Not exactly liking the baby voice and once again seeing the swishing white ponytail antagonizing him when Jiraiya turned around, Ranbouen stopped being so happy and growled at Jiraiya, looking like he was about to stand up and attack as he barked angrily at the middle-aged sage, "Grrr-Growl! Growlithe!"

Jiraiya looked prepared to dodge whatever the ornery dog that had been downright hostile to Jiraiya for some reason whenever he turned his back on him when Naruto jumped down from a spot on the mast and tried to run over to stop Ranbouen from attacking his sensei, "Ranbouen stop! Don't attack Ero-sennin!"

A gleam came to Jiraiya's eye and he rushed over to deliver a kick to Naruto, "Don't be so merciful! Fight's not over yet brat! I never said stop!" When the wooden sandal connected with the small blonde boy, Naruto turned into smoke, "Another clone?" He then felt a massive influx of chakra coming from behind him.

"Duh! Did you really think I gave a damn if Ranbouen bit you or shot fire sparks at you? I'm not blowing my hiding spot for that!" Jiraiya turned around to see Naruto charging at him, a clone at his side and a larger than normal Rasengan between them. Both of their eyes were red, showing that they were drawing upon the Kyuubi to power their jutsu, "I needed some time to charge this! Odama Rasengan (Great Ball Rasengan)!"

Jiraiya held out his hands and desperately waved them to get Naruto to stop, "Brat turn it off! If you hit me with that you'll mess the ship up! Remember what happened every time you ever tried it!" They had to start working that jutsu on the water because the potential for explosions occurring from that jutsu were guaranteed with every use.

Naruto and his clone realized this and stopped in their tracks, falling face-first onto the deck after letting the Rasengan fade. The clone disappeared and the original picked himself up onto his feet, "Ugh, ow. So did I win this spar or what?" He asked with a grin, his more feral Kyuubi features fading, "I got you to say stop."

A bark of laughter came from Jiraiya as he shook his head, "Ha, you're still a few years too early to beat me with that one. I'd have dodged it and you would have sunken the ship. That's why I said to stop. It was for all of our sakes."

"Growwwl! *snap*"

"Gah!" Jiraiya shouted as Ranbouen latched his teeth onto Jiraiya's backside and continued to growl, not letting go of the grizzled old shinobi, "What's with this dog? He doesn't bite anyone else like this!" He turned towards Naruto who was stifling a laugh and pointed to the puppy Pokémon attached to his butt, "Get. Him. Off…"

Naruto let out a few snickers but pulled out a Poke Ball and called Ranbouen back, "Return." A stream of red light shot out of the middle button of the ball and turned Ranbouen into red energy that got sucked back into the device, freeing Jiraiya from his jaws. After the dog was back in the Poke Ball, Naruto let out one more snicker and whispered to the ball, "Good boy… we'll work on what I know about your attacks later."

Ignoring that, Jiraiya walked gingerly through the sailors to get to the hold of the ship, "Do Pokémon have rabies? I need to get the bite wounds on my ass disinfected…"

XxX

(Sometime Later – Unknown Town)

The ship landed in a narrow inlet that only seemed to be able to house that vessel and nothing else. Upon getting off of the ship and onto the ground again, the first thing Jiraiya did was make his needed hand-seals and slam his palm right onto the ground, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!" Just like on Cinnabar Island, there was nothing.

"Still no toads?" Naruto asked, frowning as he already knew the answer. On Cinnabar Island it didn't matter that much since he was still excited from getting Ranbouen and being in a new place, but it was starting to get a bit disconcerting since it kept happening, "What's going on?"

"I wish I could tell you kid." Jiraiya said, getting back up from touching the ground, "It worked when we were on the ship. I hadn't used it for a week before trying it once we landed at Cinnabar Island though. Why can't we summon here? There isn't supposed to be any range to summoning."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" The chances were low, but Naruto still wanted Jiraiya to know that he was aware of the situation and how important it was. The toads were his identity pretty much. He repeatedly introduced to him.

More than half of his self-introductions were toad-related.

However Jiraiya just started walking about, hand on his chin in thought, "I don't think so kid. You've got your mission to get to right? Why don't you poke around this place and see what you can figure out. First of all find out what it's called."

Figuring that the best thing he could do at the moment was follow the order that was given to him to proceed with the task bestowed upon him by Tsunade, Naruto did just that and left Jiraiya to his own devices. There wasn't really a beach here so there wasn't an overt worry that Jiraiya would go off to ogle women. He seemed too preoccupied to do so anyway.

So Naruto took the time to walk around the small town. The roads were dirt trails and the homes looked very different from what he was used to in Konoha. There were a few trees but none of the volume that the Elemental Nations possessed. Secrecy and misdirection apparently wasn't a big thing and being able to easily get to places was probably important to them.

Instead of forests this town had a lot of open grassy plains with kids a few years younger than him playing around in them. Probably kids that would be in the Academy if they were in Konoha. It was peaceful.

Walking around for long enough, Naruto managed to see a very large residence with a windmill sitting on top of it situated atop the largest hill in the town. That looked like an important place, "Hey!" Naruto shouted at the kids to get their attention, "What's that big building up on that hill?"

The kids looked at each other before speaking up, "That's Professor Oak's lab. Are you a Trainer?" One of the kids asked.

He didn't look like he trained people did he? But then again, Konohamaru asked him to train him and he didn't even seem to care that Naruto was just a genin. So what kind of answer could he give them? Shrugging his shoulders, Naruto responded, "I train. Why? And why does that Oak guy live in such a big house?"

Looking like they were conferring upon themselves, Naruto eventually cleared his throat and got their attention back on him, "Oh! Well if you're a trainer you probably want to go there. Everyone that trains and comes to Pallet Town goes to see him."

"Yeah, and he knows like everything about Pokémon too!"

Well that last thing was all that Naruto needed to hear. Giving the kids a thankful grin he nodded before turning down the path and taking off speedily towards the lab, "Thanks you guys!" He shouted back at the kids that were awestruck at how fast he ran.

XxX

(Pallet Town – Professor Oak's Laboratory)

It was kind of an intimidating place to stand directly in front of the doors of, and Naruto was not very eager to knock on the front door. A frown marred his face as he seemed to be balancing the possible pros and cons of getting this person's attention, 'A professor that lives at the edge of town by himself in a big house by itself on a hill… I've seen scary movies that started like this.'

"Are you going in or are you just going to block the door all day?"

Naruto turned around to see a boy his age walking up the hill path towards the lab. He had spiky brown hair and wore a purple long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and brown boots on his feet as well as a reflective pendant on his chest. He seemed rather impatient as he got closer to Naruto, eventually sliding past him to enter. Not really knowing what else to do since this kid just seemed to walk on in, Naruto followed, "Sorry, I didn't know I could just go in." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, "So you train?" He asked, trying to make conversation.

The boy turned around towards Naruto and smirked, "You should go ahead and remember this name since you asked me that; my name is Gary Oak, and I can tell you that in one year I'll be the best trainer in Kanto. Guarantee it."

Well there wasn't any lack of confidence in this guy at all. But it did beg the question from the blonde foreigner, "Why a year exactly Oak?"

"Because I'm starting for real today." He replied sharply before getting a tick mark on his head at what Naruto called him, "Hey, don't use my last name like that, it sounds lame. If you've got to use my name or call me anything just call me Blue alright? No one uses my actual name anyway."

Blue. That's weird, "Oh, well I'm Uzumaki Naruto… but you can just call me Naruto I guess." He then started looking around the multiple books on shelves and the more technological shelves that seemed to hold Poke Balls, "So what are you doing here anyway? I came here to talk to this Prof. Oak guy. I heard he knows a lot about Pokémon so maybe he can help me out."

Blue chuckled a bit as they walked to a lab room with an open view of a large patch of land that must have been laboratory property, "Yeah… Gramps knows his stuff. He's like the most famous Pokémon Researcher in Kanto.

"Gramps?" Naruto said before thinking about the kid's name. It was Oak, like Prof. Oak.

Ignoring Naruto's questioning tone when repeating part of his previous statement, Blue cupped his hands by his mouth and yelled, "Oi! Gramps are you here? You told me to show up today to get my first Pokémon!"

The shout echoed through the lab, even through the second level of the lab up the stairs where a shout came down in response, "Blue? Ah, I lost track of time again!" There were the sounds of rummaging upstairs before footsteps and finally the sight of a figure descending the steps, "I'm coming, I'm coming." A man with short grey hair and bushy black eyebrows that wore a pair of brown slacks and a red button-up shirt underneath an open lab coat, "I was just finishing selecting your first Pokémon for you." He said, walking up to Blue with a smile as he held out a Poke Ball.

An excited Blue eagerly received the ball with a huge smile on his face, "Thanks Gramps." He said, eyes not peeling away from the ball for a moment, "You just gave the future champion his first Pokémon you know."

"Just make sure that you go see your mother and sister before you head out on your journey." Prof. Oak chuckled a bit and gave Blue a pat on the head before realizing that there was someone else there with them, "Oh, where are my manners? I just left my other guest here without acknowledging him at all. Hello." He said before catching sight of the calmly smiling blonde boy that made Prof. Oak think he had seen a ghost, "*gasp* Minato? It's been fifteen years. You're way smaller than I remember… and wearing more orange."

Naruto's brow furrowed in confusion, "Uh, my name's Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto." He then realized that Oak had used the name of the Yondaime Hokage, "Wait, you knew that guy? That guy was the leader of my village!" He said with a big grin.

"Minato was?" Oak said before beginning to laugh, "Ah, that was a trustworthy young man back then. I assume you're from the same place he came from. You're kind of far out of the way aren't you? How is Minato doing anyway?" It had been a very long time since that man had stumbled through the streets of Pallet Town, a confused expression on his face until he finally ran into Prof. Oak and slightly less longer since Oak saw off the Konoha ship housing his foreign friend for the last time.

At that, Naruto's grin dropped, remembering the circumstances around the Yondaime Hokage's loss of his position in Konoha, "Well… he died… twelve years ago to protect our village." He said, not adding the exact specifics in case this person was actually good friends with the former Hokage and would seen Naruto differently, perhaps in a negative light.

The expression on Prof. Oak's face fell at hearing that touch of bad news, "Oh, I see. That's quite sad. I knew him very well when his ships from the Elemental Nations came here. He walked up to the largest building in Pallet Town and asked me whatever he could." He began to walk over to the large screen door that lead to the back of the property and looked out onto the land as he continued to talk, "The world lost a very good young man in that case."

Lost on the context of the conversation, Blue finally chose to interject, "Gramps you know this kid?"

Prof. Oak turned around towards his grandson and spared a look at Naruto before chuckling and replying, "No I can't say that I've had the fortune of meeting Naruto here before. I know of his village though. It's an exceedingly faraway place. Farther than Hoenn, farther than Unova. The distance is incredible. Thousands of miles. So far that Pokémon don't even exist there. So what brings you to Kanto in the first place? Don't tell me you're sightseeing from the stories that Minato and his crew told your homeland." He joked.

"Well…" Naruto said before looking around and whispering to the older man, "I'm on a big-time S-rank mission for my village. But it's okay, I can tell you though because I need your help. I'm here to report whatever I can find on Pokémon for my village leader."

"Mission?" Blue said before letting out a laugh as he looked at Naruto, "What are you, some kind of soldier or secret agent? You're a runt, who'd send you on a mission?"

Naruto glared at Blue and prepared to give him a heated earful until Prof. Oak spoke up once more, "I see. Well this is a very difficult mission that you've been sent on young man." He said, walking off to a desk in the corner of his room, seeming like he was looking for something, "But from what I know of your home I feel it's one that you can handle if you were sent here."

While this was happening, Blue was in disbelief, "Gramps you actually believe this kid? How can anyone send him on a mission? He's not any older than me!"

"Minato told me all the time that the majority of the youth in his homeland became soldiers for their village's standing military; to keep the peace and defend the region's interests among other things." Prof. Oak said, still rummaging around, looking for something, "So yes, I do believe him. Especially since the first thing that Minato asked for when we first met was if he had any work that paid. Saying something along the lines of, 'Even D-rank missions would do at this point.'" He remembered with a laugh, thinking about how confusing those days were before he found what he had been looking for, "Ah! Here we go, this is it."

When the man made his way back over to Naruto, Blue saw what was in his hand and quickly snapped his head back towards Naruto, "What? You're giving him a Pokédex? What the hell is up with that?"

"Language." Oak said sternly with a pointed glance that got Blue to recoil a bit, "And yes I am. If this boy's mission is to find information on the Pokémon of our world then he would need a tool like this to catalog the information of what he sees." He placed a red, thin rectangular device into Naruto's hand that had a part that opened up to reveal a screen and buttons inside, "Naruto, this is a Pokédex. If your mission really does entail finding out all about Pokémon that you can, this will at least help out in regards to keeping the information. No writing."

Oh thank goodness. As far as Naruto was concerned he really didn't want to deal with having to write a mission report for an S-rank mission like this. At least he didn't have to write all he found on Pokémon. Who knew exactly how many that would be or how much he'd need to write. His worst nightmare.

Accepting the device with a grin, Naruto looked at it before grabbing the ball containing his Pokémon to let it out, "Come on Ranbouen, let's see how this thing works!" In a pop of energy, the Poke Ball released the fire breathing dog that looked around his new surroundings curiously.

"_You_ had a Pokémon already?" Blue said, pointing at Naruto's Growlithe. Didn't his grandfather just say that Naruto was from a place without Pokémon at all?

Out of excitement at finally getting something on the Pokémon he apparently owned, Naruto flipped open the Pokédex that scanned Ranbouen and relayed its information to Naruto as a picture of a Growlithe, its footprints, possible attacks, and basic metric info appeared on the screen, _"Growlithe; the Puppy Pokemon. Growlithe has a superb sense of smell. Once it smells anything, this Pokémon won't forget the scent, no matter what. It uses its advanced olfactory sense to determine the emotions of other living things. Extremely loyal, it will fearlessly bark at any opponent to protect its own Trainer from harm."_ Oh, so the freaking Pokédex talked too? Also convenient.

Seeing Naruto's focus on the information in the Pokédex, Prof. Oak gave Ranbouen a few pats on the head, "Now since you have a Pokémon here I don't believe I need to offer you one, which is good because I don't have any starters ready. Still though, fire-type Pokémon are notoriously hard for beginners to control. Ow!" He yelped when he accidentally wound up with his hand in Ranbouen's mouth for a moment, "Heh, he's mouthy."

"Ranbouen's good." Naruto said, kneeling down and giving the Growlithe a hug, prompting him to lick Naruto's face spiritedly, "He bites everyone like that when they first try to pet him. He bit me like that. At least you're not Ero-sennin though… he bites him for real."

Blue looked at Naruto and his Growlithe and let out a laugh after getting over the fact that some random kid from across the ocean had a Pokémon before him, "Can't even control your Pokémon…" He then shrugged haplessly and turned around, "It doesn't really matter anyway. That thing's a runt. I wouldn't have even bothered catching it."

Knowing when someone was talking about him, Ranbouen growled at Blue and barked the name of his own species gruffly several times until Naruto rubbed his neck to calm him down, "Hey, there's nothing wrong with Ranbouen." Naruto insisted, getting up from his kneel, "I bet he's already stronger than whatever you've got in that Poke Ball." From the book that Naruto read to learn a little bit on how to possibly take care of his Pokémon, he learned that people that had Pokémon had them fight each other from time to time. Well this was one of those times, "Why don't we battle and find out?"

Blue shook his head, still smirking before turning to leave the lab, "Sorry. I've got an important trip to go on. You see, I'm about to go out and beat every Gym Leader in Kanto and enter the Pokémon League. I can't waste any time with that, especially with some kid and his angry Growlithe." He spared a wave to Prof. Oak before reaching the front door, "Thanks for the Pokémon Gramps. I can't wait to show you how many strong Pokémon I catch."

Naruto stared after Blue as he left the building before muttering under his breath, "I don't like that guy." He said flat out and plainly, not even apologizing for saying it in front of Blue's grandfather.

"Gary is a good boy, he's just had it in his mind that since I'm his grandfather that makes him a superior prospective keeper of Pokémon." Prof. Oak said as he knelt down to Ranbouen and rubbed his head again, much to the young Growlithe's delight, "There's nothing wrong with this little guy at all. He's young and he's very healthy, aside from that I know from experience that his teeth are strong."

Ranbouen ran over from Prof. Oak to Naruto and started playing tug-of-war with his fun master's Poke Ball that usually housed him when it was time to rest, "Growwl…"

While the puppy started playing with Naruto, Oak looked at the boy and couldn't help but see parts of Minato in him. Goodness, he looked similar to him, but too different to ask the question he wished to ask. Also from the way that Naruto never referred to Minato as his father, it led the scientist to believe that his assumption of such was mistaken, "I wish you luck Naruto. That Pokédex is set to send any extra Pokémon you catch to me, so just give me a call whenever you need any. My number is in the Pokedex. And take yourself some Poke Balls from the shelves so that in case you find any Pokémon you would like to have you can capture them."

Naruto heard the old scientist and stopped his play with Ranbouen to give him a huge grin, "Wow, thanks Professor! For an old guy you're really cool." With that, Naruto grabbed a few Poke Balls and ran for the door, "I've got to go tell my sensei all of this stuff! You two should meet each other, you're both old so you'd have something to talk about!"

As Naruto left, Oak couldn't help but remember Minato's own rapport with the Pokémon he had managed to catch when he was in Kanto. Though he let them go because he feared that they wouldn't live healthily in the Elemental Nations. Naruto had a kind spirit much like that man did.

One thing irked him about young Naruto though, "…I'm not old… am I?"

XxX

(Pallet Town – Seaside Inlet)

Naruto and Ranbouen chose to run all the way through town back to the dock where the ship was situated. It had been a few hours since he had left that place to check out the town, but when he returned he found the ship ready to set sail again.

"Naruto, come here." Jiraiya said, leaning against a post on the docks as sailors were loading and unloading things on and off the ship, "I've got something I need to tell you."

Jogging over to Jiraiya with a grin, Naruto started first, "Ero-sennin, I found some old guy named Professor Oak who gave me something that would help me keep info on Pokémon I find here. That's gonna make this so much easier! He even gave me Poke Balls to catch more too."

Jiraiya gave Naruto a smile and ruffled his hair, "That's good. Maybe you really can handle this on your own for a bit." He said, getting a look of confusion out of Naruto, "I need to see how far out from Kanto I have to be to summon so I hired this ship to head back the way we came until I can do so. I summoned while we were on that ship, but I hadn't tried it in a while so I don't know how far it would be. I need to find out why we can't summon here, and when I do I'll come right back and catch up to you."

"You're leaving?" Naruto said in rapt disbelief. He wasn't going to admit that he was scared out loud, but he was being left alone in this strange place. While the people did seem nice and the danger seemed less than there happened to be in the Elemental Nations, there was still a touch of nerves there, "But aren't you training me?"

"I'm not leaving for long kid." Jiraiya said with a roll of his eyes, "I'll be gone for a week or two, no longer than that I'm sure of it. And I'll come back to get you and pick up. I've given you something to work on in the meantime, but don't even try touching the Kyuubi's chakra without me unless you're about to die." Naruto nodded chiefly, knowing the dangers of abusing the Kyuubi's chakra.

Ranbouen could read the aura between the two Konoha shinobi and whined as he walked over to Jiraiya and butted him in the leg with his nose, getting Jiraiya to rub his head comfortingly, "It'll be okay Ranbouen. Return." Naruto said, holding up his Poke Ball and recalling his Growlithe into the orb. Naruto took a deep breath and gave Jiraiya a look full of determination, "I'll be fine while you're gone Ero-sennin. But how are you going to find me when you come back?"

"How far do you really think you'll get?" Jiraiya joked with a grin, "You shouldn't underestimate a legendary ninja like myself Naruto. I can find you just like that." He said with a snap of his fingers, "All I have to do is follow the roads… and the stories of destruction and mischief about a blonde kid that makes copies of himself." He finished under his breath.

Naruto scoffed in an offended manner, "How much trouble do you think I can get into just looking for Pokémon?"

Famous last words.

"Whatever you say kid." Jiraiya said before leading Naruto onto the ship, "Now come on and gather all of your gear. I paid the captain of this ship to depart before sunset so that I can hurry up and get back to you quickly." The sailors wanted to get back to Kanto's mainland and do some trading too, but Jiraiya's money was good. Very good.

After grabbing his things and saying goodbye to the members of the crew he had befriended during travel, Naruto sat on the docks next to his re-released Growlithe and watched the ship disembark and head back out to sea.

Well it wasn't any different than any of the solo missions he had to take right after Konoha's invasion by Otogakure. Hell, chances were it would probably be safer. And he wasn't even alone; he had Ranbouen for company.

The ship let out a blast of its horn to get Naruto's attention and he heard Jiraiya's voice yell out to him, "Hey kid! You might want to read the scroll Tsunade gave you now since you're there by now! No prying eyes in Kanto you know?"

Blinking to himself, Naruto realized that Jiraiya had a point. Whipping off his backpack, Naruto rummaged around inside for his mission scroll and popped it open to read through it and figure out just what his real directions were before destroying it as he was supposed to with S-rank mission scrolls.

_Naruto._

_I hope that by the time you're reading this you're doing well on your mission. It's just like the kind that you seem to enjoy going on; difficult, in a new place, and with parameters that you've never heard of anyone else trying to work through before. Don't tell me that you haven't been enjoying yourself thus far because I know that would be a lie._

_But this has been written to inform you that the entire reason for this mission was to get you to travel with Jiraiya per the original plan to train you. The same plan that would see you travelling abroad for three years to prepare you for the threat of Akatsuki trying to take the Kyuubi from you. And before you say that all you care about is bringing Sasuke back I'll urge you one more time not to dwell on that, but all the same I'll say that if you can defeat Akatsuki members then you can take Sasuke down as well._

_So don't bitch about it, and don't be a little punk about it. It's training, so do it, get strong, and if you have to mouth off about it do it there where I can't hear it because if you wait until you get back to gather your thoughts and shoot your loud little mouth off at me I'll put you through a wall Jiraiya-style._

_That aside. I wish you luck, Shizune wishes you luck, and Sakura wishes you luck. Since you're there it would be good for you to really perform the mission and gather information on the strange animals of Kanto, and it still counts as an S-rank mission. You just deserved to know the reason for the misdirection._

_I'll see you again in three years. Keep yourself out of trouble kid. If anyone can handle this it'll be you._

_Godaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, Senju Tsunade._

Wow.

And as he finished reading through the 'mission scroll' for the third time to validate what he had just seen, Naruto dropped it on the deck and jumped up to his feet to shout at the ship that was swiftly distancing itself from shore, "Oi! Ero-sennin you'd better turn right back around now and take this beatdown for tricking me damn you!" The ship just kept going and he could swear that it sped up, "I am going to kick you right in the face when you get back!"

…

"Ha! If you could do that then you wouldn't need the training trip would you? Keep working on the last thing I gave you to train on and _maybe_ you'll have a shot!"

Jiraiya just had to get in one last jab while he was still somehow in earshot. And Naruto's responding loud shout was cut out by the horn of the ship blaring to cover up his voice. Ranbouen could hear him clearly though and started howling in correspondence to Naruto's lingering yell.

Eventually Naruto ran out of breath and jumped off of the dock to stand on the water and continue expressing his displeasure about being tricked, "An S-rank mission, there's always a catch!" He grumbled to himself as he kicked around the water beneath his feet as if the ocean could feel pain, "OW!" He shouted, jumping back onto the dock and landing on his belly as he felt something latch onto the front of his kicking foot, over all of his toes, "What the hell?"

On Naruto's foot was a light purple complete shell with two spikes on the top and two on the bottom. For some reason it was latched on tight, and it made no sense how a shell got on his foot when he was on the surface of the water.

Naruto jumped up and tried to kick and shake the shell off of his foot but fell on his backside as it wasn't going anywhere. Ranbouen watched Naruto make a Kage Bunshin to help him try to pry the shell off of his foot in interest. His master was sure interesting. Nothing was ever boring with him around and he was learning a lot about humans; because he didn't know that they could do that. Was that how they multiplied instead of being hatched from eggs like Pokémon?

"Get off!" Naruto shouted as his clone finally gave up trying to pry it off, "Haah… I think we're going to have to Rasengan it off…" The clone looked nervous at that proposition, "I know it's crazy, but come on. Just do it." The clone shrugged and moved to Naruto's side to create a Rasengan between the two of them when they heard something high-pitched.

"Shellder!"

They stopped forming the Rasengan between their hands and looked at the shell that was starting to wiggle around on the real Naruto's foot. Ranbouen sniffed at the shell and began to growl at it, getting it to shake in… fear?

The clone looked at the shell and then at Naruto, "You don't think…"

Naruto shrugged and pulled out his Pokédex which came with an immediate answer, _"Shellder; the Bivalve Pokémon. Shellder's hard shell repels any kind of attack. It is vulnerable only when its shell is open. It swims backward by opening and closing its two shells. Its large tongue is always kept hanging out."_

"A Pokémon." Naruto said as Ranbouen tried to bite the shell only to recoil with quite a bit of tooth pain, "Ranbouen, didn't you just hear the Pokédex?" After his dog failed to get the shell off, Naruto's clone helped him back up where he continued to shake his foot and kick about to get the Shellder off. Eventually the shaking got to the little Pokémon and it dizzily fell to the ground where Ranbouen proceeded to face off with it, still growling.

Now that it was detached from his foot, Naruto could see a pair of eyes and a large tongue from the inside of the shell and a black body that he couldn't make out within. It didn't seem to be afraid of Ranbouen in the least either now that it was free.

Well he read that Pokémon got into battles, so now was as good a time as any to see what Ranbouen had. But Shellder was a water Pokémon, and that was a problem for Ranbouen's fire-type. Still, the little puppy didn't seem to care at all, looking to want to fight regardless of type.

"Growl!" Ranbouen barked, gesturing his head towards the Shellder intently for Naruto to pay attention to, "Growl! Growlithe!"

Alright then. A battle was alright with Naruto, "Okay, use Ember!" He ordered of his Pokémon. Watching as Ranbouen unleashed a volley of small fire sparks from his mouth. Shellder's shell just closed via the use of Withdraw to prevent taking any damage from the attack, "Damn it. We've got to get past that shell…"

Shellder launched itself at Ranbouen and smashed into its face, knocking him down on the dock, but the tough little dog got right back up and shook himself off, "Grrrr… Growl!" A look of determination came over Ranbouen's eyes as Shellder launched itself at him again with another Tackle, forcing the Puppy Pokémon to dodge the attack much in the way he had seen Naruto dodge Jiraiya's attacks during his training on the ship during their few days of travel from Cinnabar Island.

Confused as to where Ranbouen had gone due to the limited field of vision available from the inside of that shell, Shellder looked around and then at Naruto in confusion as he grinned and pointed behind the wild Pokémon, "Shellder?"

A growl from up close right behind the seafaring Pokémon got it to freeze up in fear before it turned around and faced the snarling Growlithe right up close.

"Ember!" Naruto ordered with an excited shout as Ranbouen blasted the sparks right into the opening of the shell, peppering the creature inside of the shell relentlessly until it seemed to be rendered unconscious from the barrage, "Yeah!" Naruto shouted as he pulled out a Poke Ball and threw it at the Shellder, enclosing it into the orb that landed back onto the deck. It shook around to show a little bit of fight, but eventually the small noise that signified a successful capture emanated from the ball, "Got it! Good job Ranbouen!"

Ranbouen looked at the full Poke Ball on the dock and let out a few happy and victorious barks, "Growl! Growwwlithe!" Following behind his trainer happily, Ranbouen watched Naruto pick up the ball and place it in his supply pouch, "Growl!"

With a grin still on his face, Naruto rubbed Ranbouen's head before holding up the Poke Ball that housed him and recalled him, "Return." After watching the Pokémon disappear in a red beam of light, Naruto felt his bad mood mostly vanish as he turned back at the empty horizon where the ship was out of sight.

So he had all of Kanto to go through, looking for Pokémon like his Growlithe and his new Shellder. Some he could catch the way he did them, but all of them he had to catalogue in his Pokédex. And he had to get stronger by himself until Jiraiya came back to help his training.

Easy. He was Uzumaki Naruto after all, and he could do anything he wanted.

With nothing left to shout or yell, Naruto turned to walk away from the docks to head towards the northernmost path out of Pallet Town. His walk turned to a jog and his jog then turned to an outright run. He had supplies, he had Pokémon, and he had himself. That was all he needed to get ahead as far as he was concerned as he ran through the quiet streets of the small town and let them hear just who he was.

"Kanto! Say hello to Uzumaki Naruto, dattebayo!"

XxX

(A While Later – Route 1)

Signs on the roads told Naruto that this was the path to another place called Viridian City. It was a wide open area with trees littering the outskirts of the route where the path wasn't beaten, and most Pokémon weren't fool enough to stand in the path of one Uzumaki Naruto who was rolling unopposed over the grounds, hopping up ledges and running a path through tall grass like a reaper.

A trip that would have taken most people several hours of walking was shaving time down immeasurably in regards to Naruto due to his all-terrain effectiveness of travel. His answer to any natural obstacle was to run past or around it, or to jump over it.

He stopped at a river to give his newly named Shellder Hogohei (Protective Soldier) some time in the water as well as to let Ranbouen get something to drink before the trip continued, "We're almost to that next town." Naruto said to his two Pokémon, noticing that Hogohei was mellow ever since being captured, "Are we all good here?" He asked, getting two calls of affirmation from his two Pokémon, "Alright, return." He called them back to their Poke Balls and prepared to continue onward.

"No! Rattata don't let this guy beat you!"

A shout from a young sounding voice got Naruto to hurry over to where he found a battle going on between a purple mouse with a white underbelly that had a long whisker coming out of each cheek and two large visible buck teeth, _"Rattata; the Mouse Pokémon._ _Will chew on anything with its fangs. If you see one, it is certain that 40 more live in the area." _And a small brown Pokémon with a bushy tail and a lighter brown mane around its neck that looked like a mix between a dog, a cat, a fox, a rabbit, and other mammals, _"Eevee; the Evolution Pokémon. Its irregularly configured DNA is affected by its surroundings. It evolves if its environment changes in certain ways and has multiple possible evolutions."_

"Sand Attack! Then follow up with Quick Attack so we can put an end to this!"

The trainer of the Rattata, a boy around Naruto's age watched in helplessness as dirt was thrown into the eyes of the Rattata, setting it up for a follow-up attack that involved the Eevee quickly darting from its starting place faster than even Naruto could move to smash into it, knocking it to the ground unconscious, "No!"

"Ha!" Oh, that voice. Yeah, it had to be Blue. No doubt about it, "That's what I'm talking about! My skills are just way ahead of yours kid!" The boy from Pallet Town said as his Eevee ran back to his side.

"Vee-vee!" The Eevee cried out in a satisfied manner over its victory.

"Even my Eevee knows that it's the best." Blue said, still gloating over his victory as he pulled out his Poke Ball and recalled his Eevee to within its confines, "The trainers around here all suck. They're so weak." He said to himself as he began to walk past the dejected young man he had just defeated.

"Hey Blue!"

Recoiling at hearing his voice shouted by the distinct tone of someone he had met earlier that day, Blue turned around and palmed his face at seeing Naruto jog up to him, "Oh no it's you again. Why are you here?" He said before pointing something out, "Wait, I left Pallet Town right after I left Gramps' lab. How did you get all the way out here already?"

"I ran." Naruto said matter-of-factly, pointing back the way he came from, "I stopped a little bit to see some of the Pokémon around here, fought a few with Ranbouen and Hogohei, and did a little bit of training, but yeah. I pretty much just ran here."

Blue's eye twitched at hearing Naruto dismiss such a feat as he didn't even look out of breath, but his tone and the fact that he was there in the first place didn't suggest that he was lying, "…It's twenty miles from here to Viridian City." Naruto just shrugged in response, getting Blue to palm his face before regaining his previous swagger, "But I guess since you're here you saw me take that loser back there apart."

"That Eevee, is that what you got from Professor Oak?" Blue nodded proudly at receiving such a rare Pokémon as his first one, "Heh… Ranbouen is still cooler even if it just won." Naruto said with a shit-eating grin as he rubbed the space right under his nose.

Blue looked offended at hearing Naruto just dismiss how good his Eevee was on its first day, "I don't want to hear that. I've been kicking the crap out of every punk that wanted a battle with me all over the road. I even caught another Pokémon on the way up here. So don't act like you want to see who's got the stronger Pokémon." He saw Naruto smirk as if he had just goaded him into a battle and he pulled back his previous statement, "Yeah… I'd show you who's boss, but Viridian City is just a few minutes away." He said, pointing in the direction where one could see the city not too far from where they were.

"So what?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow. Why did it matter to him how close they were to town? He just wanted to see Ranbouen and Hogohei drop Blue's self-esteem into the dirt, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You really don't know anything do you?" Blue said, shaking his head before walking along towards Viridian with his hands in his pockets, "I'm saving my energy for the Gym in Viridian City where I'm going to beat the leader. That's more important than beating the crap out of a newbie."

A fight with a leader of some gym? Like a dojo? That sounded like Naruto's kind of scene. He wanted to test his training out on someone other than Jiraiya to see if he had really gotten any stronger over the last two months of doing nothing but train.

"I'm in!" Naruto said enthusiastically, falling into step with Blue as the two proceeded to walk.

None too excited to be walking with Naruto, Blue spoke up about it, "Could you stop following me? I don't want whatever makes you a loser to rub off onto me. Not while I'm on the hot-streak I'm on today."

"But I don't know how to find this Gym place that you're talking about." Naruto said, looking at Blue through squinted eyes, "…So I kind of have to follow you to get there don't I?"

In return Blue said nothing, but internally he was repeating to himself just how much he disliked this guy, 'I am shaking this punk at the very first opportunity…' He thought to himself as Naruto began to chatter to him about everything and nothing all at the same time.

XxX

(A Little While Later – Viridian City – Viridian Gym)

Viridian City was a pretty big place, way bigger than Pallet Town. It had paved streets, tons of homes on each block, trees all over, and like Blue said there was a Gym that he led Naruto right to whether he wanted to or not. But that was where things took a bit of a shift from what was expected.

**CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE**

Both Naruto and Blue stared at the sign posted on the front of the beautiful looking building. Traditional Roman architecture and even a fountain surrounded by stairs sat out front, but disappointment was expressly written on Naruto's face, "Aww… I wanted to beat this guy up and see if I had gotten any stronger."

"Whatever." Blue said dismissively, though he had the same sentiments. Unlike Naruto though, who thought it was a gym for humans, Blue meant to test out how strong his Eevee and his second Pokémon were, but this put a damper on those plans, "If you're going to the next town you should head north. Through the forest there. That's the way to Pewter City."

Naruto blinked and wondered why Blue was telling him this, "Well aren't you going that way too? Why don't you just come with me?" Mostly, Naruto was asking this because he didn't have a map… or money. He himself had only eaten some of immeasurable amount of the ramen he had stored in a scroll in his backpack and had shared with his Pokémon, but they didn't seem to share his love of the food so he would have to get them something else soon. Blue certainly didn't look strapped for cash.

Aside from the fact that Blue just didn't like Naruto, which was reason enough to not want to travel with him, he had other reasons which were his own, "Because I'm not going that way yet. I want to see if I can find any stronger Pokémon around here." He actually wanted to get a move on, but if Naruto really ran from Pallet Town to Viridian City then having him go ahead was the best way to get rid of him.

"Why not just wait here for the Gym Leader to come back?" Quite honestly, Naruto did not want to be denied the chance to show off his ninja skills in a fight against this 'Gym Leader' person… as he still didn't know what the purpose of a Gym was in Kanto, under the assumption that it was meant for people.

"If you want to wait around here forever for this guy to come back then be my guest." Blue said as he began to walk off, hopeful that he finally got Naruto off of his back. From that point forward he was going to wait in Viridian… maybe make some calls until he could really travel in style the way a future champion like him deserved to travel.

On the other hand, Naruto just watched Blue walk off and sighed before starting to do so as well.

Before he could even walk down the stairs to get back to the street the doors to the Gym opened as a man stepped out. Excitedly, Naruto turned around and ran up to him, surprising him. The man wore a black suit over a turtleneck shirt that sat under the jacket and had short black hair, "Hey, I want to fight the Gym Leader in there. Why's this sign on the door if you're here?"

The man blinked before smiling sheepishly, "Oh, I'm just checking up on the Gym until the Gym Leader comes back. Sorry, but the Gym's still closed. You should go north to Pewter City if you want to fight a Gym Leader for the time being, up past Viridian Forest."

"Damn…" Naruto muttered before looking back up at the man as he shut the doors to the building and locked the doors, "Well thanks anyway Oji-san. When this guy comes back I guess I'll be right here to kick his butt the way I planned to." He chuckled at that point, "It'll be easier because I'll be stronger then too. So when he comes back you tell that guy that Uzumaki Naruto is coming for him."

Giving Naruto a courteous smile, the man waved to Naruto as he started to walk away, right up until he saw Naruto jump off of the ledge at the edge of the Gym's property and onto a rooftop where he proceeded to travel above the streets again. At that sight his face changed from the polite one that had been there previously, to a sharper one, more ominous.

The man shook his head as a sleek black car with darkly tinted windows pulled up in front of the Gym, a man in the passenger's seat getting out to let him inside of it that wore black boots, a pair of black pants, and a black turtleneck with a large red 'R' on it, "Boss."

"Don't call me that outside idiot." The 'Boss' said as he climbed into the vehicle and the underling got into the passenger's seat as the car took off down the road, "Let's get back to work shall we?"

"Yes Boss."

"And I'd like our resources to gather information on someone named Uzumaki Naruto. He… interests me."

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 1: Pallet Town<span>

Minato never thought he'd be so happy to see land in his entire life, but he almost lost his composure and kissed the solid ground once his ship and the other two from Konoha landed safely. Months of storm-laden hell, and there was no desperation summoning a boss-level summon to keep the ships safe for some strange reason.

Either way, there were still other Konoha shinobi from the three remaining ships, looking around for ways to restock their vessels and find out just where they had been blown off course to.

Spearheading the effort by going around, doing the legwork to ask for work the old-fashioned way was Minato.

And this led him to the largest building in Pallet Town, a large house at the top of a hill with a windmill on the top of it. He knocked on the door and rang the bell but never got any response. Deciding to take a chance as after the two months he had there was nothing that really scared him any longer, Minato opened the door and walked inside, looking around at all of the books and the strange red and white balls that were strewn throughout. The strange machines and copious amount of notes were attention grabbers as well, "Hello? Is there anyone here?"

No response came from anywhere in the house. It was still and quiet all over except for the low hum of some of the machines and the fluorescent lights in the ceiling.

Entering a lab room, Minato looked out at the back of the property that this building seemed to have with a small sense of awe. There were acres and acres of open field, and his sharp vision managed to pick up strange species of birds flying through the air, and strange large purple rats running on the grass outside to say the least of what he saw, "Wow…"

Choosing to open the door and step outside to get himself a closer look, Minato walked through the grass looking around as the creatures just seemed to get stranger and stranger the farther away from the laboratory he got.

What kind of strange place was this country?

Strange small things with blue bodies and shrubs on top of their heads, weird bugs with large mushrooms growing out of their backs… it was pretty amazing. He could stay there all day long it was so peaceful. And these animals were quite the sight.

"Help!"

It was so peaceful and quiet in fact, that Minato could hear a faint shout coming from further within the property. Breaking out in a run to find the source of the yell, he came across different shifts in terrain, to a sandy environment, and then a rocky one, which was where the yell was coming from.

"Help!" A man in a lab coat with brown hair that was beginning to grey was holding onto the ledge of a rocky cliff while below him there was a tall dark grey bipedal rhinoceros-looking creature with a jagged, hard looking hull and a large drill-like horn on its snout, "Someone help!" The man in the lab coat shouted again as the rhino-looking animal rammed into the wall hard enough to chip of pieces of rock and shake the whole thing, "Oh… I can't hold on for too much longer."

Minato quickly grabbed a pair of three-pronged kunai and dropped one there on the ground before hurling it right beside where the man in the lab coat was hanging from. The surprise of having a throwing knife impale itself in the rock right by his hands forced the man to let go and begin falling until a yellow flash appeared by the knife, a man with black pants, black sandals, a black longsleeved shirt, and a forest green tactical vest grabbed his hand to keep him from meeting his demise.

He looked up at the man's face and saw blue eyes, spiky blonde hair, and a black headband with a metal plate inscribed with a leaf, "Gotcha." Minato said before activating his jutsu again to appear safely on the ground, confusing the rhino thing that wondered just what happened, "That was a close one wasn't it?"

"You're telling me." The scientist said with a sigh before turning to Minato and falling on his backside once he became self-aware of what was happening again, "W-W-What was that thing you just did?"

"Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder God Jutsu)." Minato said, helping the man back up, "No one in this town knows how to get back to the Elemental Nations." The man gave him a blank look getting Minato to sigh, "Or even what the Elemental Nations are… man Kushina is going to kill me when I get back."

"Rhy-don!" It took a moment, but the creature noticed where Minato and the man he saved were and angrily charged at them both for being hoodwinked like that. The rhino creature lowered its head and forced power to its horn, getting it to glow white as it rushed them.

"Aah!" The scientist said again, turning to run away now that he was back on the ground, "It's Rhydon's Horn Attack! Run!"

"Right." Minato said, picking up his Hiraishin kunai off of the ground before throwing it at the Rhydon, "Or I can do this." The metal bounced off of the hardened hull of the Rhydon and jumped up into the air where Minato appeared in a flash before he lowered the boom on the back of the Rhydon's head, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

In awe, the scientist watched Minato slam a Poke Ball sized spinning blue orb of pure energy into a rampaging Pokémon's head, knocking it out cold in a crater that was created by the force of the attack and the weight of the Pokémon itself, "Impossible." He thought he had seen everything during his time as a trainer, but this was just amazing. A human effortlessly defeated a Pokémon with maneuvers that resembled Pokémon attacks, "This is simply amazing."

"Thanks." Minato picked up his Hiraishin kunai off of the ground and placed it back with his other equipment before clearing his throat and deciding to get down to the business he came there for, "So I came here wondering if there were any odd jobs that you needed done. With a big place like this there's got to be something a hard-working ninja can do to earn some money. Even a D-rank mission would do at this point." The others from Konoha thought they were too good for D-rank missions, but this was no time to be elitist with the work. They needed to resupply and their money was no good there.

"What is your name?" The man asked, extending his hand for Minato to shake, "I'm Samuel Oak, a professor of Pokémon."

Pokémon. Had to be what those creatures were that he saw all over the place. This man had property full of them, he was a professor of them, and he called the thing that attacked them a Rhydon. Easy to deduce.

"Well Oak." Minato said with a smile, "My name is Namikaze Minato of Konohagakure no Sato… and you've never heard of that place." Oak shook his head, "…I knew it. And I don't think you have any work for me to do."

"Actually." Oak said stroking his chin as he pointed back in the direction that the building lay at, "This all happened when I tried to release this Pokémon in its particular habitat. It was rather ornery. And I still have roughly two hundred more to place in their proper habitats. If you're willing to assist me with this in case of another attack since you seem to be able to handle yourself I would gladly pay you handsomely for the work."

Finally things were starting to look up a bit. Nodding in agreement with Oak, Minato began walking back with him towards his lab, "Sure. And while we do that could you tell me more about this Kanto place and these 'Pokémon' you have here? I'm not really from around these parts."

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal).

Hogohei (Shellder)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water).

Blue's Current Team

Eevee  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Quick Attack (Normal), Sand Attack (Normal), Tail Whip (Normal).

Spearow  
><span>Attacks<span>: Peck (Flying), Growl (Normal), Leer (Normal), Fury Attack (Normal).

* * *

><p><strong>So yo. This story isn't really a priority, nor am I taking it deadly seriously. It is possibly the epitome of a mindless fun story since I'm not writing it to prove anything or to test myself. I'm just doing it on a whim. That's not to say I won't be trying my best at it because I try my best at everything. Just don't expect any seven chapter marathons the way I've done in pretty much everything else I've written. <strong>

**When I update I update, but that pretty much means that it'll take a month at the latest for one to occur if I'm dragging.**

**Anyway, for those concerned with what this will entail; it's based more along the lines of the manga Pokémon Adventures as far as continuity and elements that I'll draw upon goes since that is far more serious than the anime is, so there isn't an Ash. Sorry for folks out there that were counting on that, but no Ash and no Team Rocket trio of bumbling uselessness. Since the others are Gym Leaders and stuff they'll show up and whatnot.**

**I'm using 1****st**** and 2****nd**** generation Pokémon for this too. The first 250 at least since I don't know if I'll go any further than Johto yet.**

**By the next chapter Naruto will have his first travelling companion. It's going to be good… in my own opinion, but then again my opinion doesn't matter.**

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	3. Kanto Ninja vs Konoha Ninja

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. I'm too lazy to own something that important anyway. Save that for people with ambition.

**Chapter 3: Kanto Ninja vs. Konoha Ninja**

* * *

><p>The bulk of the trip through Viridian Forest was right up Naruto's alley.<p>

It was thoroughly the most fun and the most at home he had felt since showing up in Kanto, so much so that he took his sweet time dwelling there for five days, feeding his Pokémon and himself off of the fish he was able to catch from the streams with Hogohei, his Shellder who wound up getting to bottom feed while helping his trainer out.

This led to a few battles for the Bivalve Pokémon as well with fresh water dwelling Pokemon, mostly against some stupid looking weak orange fish called Magikarp but it was all a matter of gaining experience… not food for him and Ranbouen. Mostly because after catching those fish they were extremely hard to skin. It took forever.

Speaking of gaining experience, Ranbouen was the single worst nightmare for any Pokémon thinking that they would mess with Naruto while he was training; he was a fire-breathing Growlithe with an ornery attitude and no patience for anyone that would harm his master. Bug Pokémon beware. And many, many Weedle and Caterpie were defeated and chased off by him.

Was Naruto disturbing the peace and tranquility of the forest with his constant use of mass Kage Bunshin for personal combat training? Yes.

Did the training for the jutsu that Jiraiya had bestowed upon him during their ride on the ship rock the landscape from time to time? Yes.

Did that make it a good idea for stray Beedrill to try and attack Naruto for disturbing the rest of their unevolved Kakuna forms? No. And Ranbouen made sure they paid with fire. Lots and lots of fire, much to Naruto's delight.

Right up until Ranbouen wound up hitting one of these unevolved Kakuna while they were in the middle of their group slumber, thus drawing the wrath of dozens of Beedrill. That abruptly ended Naruto's personal training time in the woods and ended with him recalling his Pokémon for their safety and hightailing it all the way out of the woods.

Instead of walking around the trees through the safe paths, Naruto ran right through the trees themselves, jumping from branch to branch like he was back in the Elemental Nations. This again was not a good idea, because the trees were where the Kakuna were all hung with String Shot to wait for their evolution, and not only did the Beedrill all guarding the Kakuna join in on pursuing Naruto spitefully, some of the Kakuna evolved right then and there and decided to do so as well.

Which leads to now.

"I am not lost, I am not lost, I am _not_ lost!" Naruto kept repeating to himself as he kept running through the branches, the hum of death chasing him with their quick wings and mobility through the trees, "Damn it, which way is north? I can't see the sun through the leaves!" A loud buzz directed Naruto's attention to directly behind him, "Aah!"

One of the bipedal wasps with large shiny eyes and antennae, two lower legs, a large stinger from its backside, and insect-like arms with conical stingers attached to the ends of them got close enough to Naruto to begin trying to stab him repeatedly with those arm stingers, managing to impale him… apparently.

Only for him to disappear into a puff of smoke with a log in his place, plenty of natural material all around him to work a Kawarimi with an explosive tag attached. An oldie but most definitely a goodie.

BOOM!

The resulting explosion caught that Beedrill in addition to quite a few others that had been following close and sent the rest fleeing away from where the blast had occurred from, letting Naruto escape chase from the angry death squad and go his own way, "Oh man. I really didn't want to kill them like that. But it was them or me…" Naruto said, adjusting his headband before continuing on to find his way out of Viridian Forest.

He'd definitely have to make a note somewhere that having a forest full of wild Beedrill guarding other places other than the paths would make it _way_ harder to invade Konoha.

Way harder.

XxX

(A Little While Later)

Stupid Blue probably knew he'd get himself lost in there.

Naruto's walk through the woods continued further with him trying to remember whatever tricks he could to head north, up to and including trying to find which side of trees moss grew on. Something that actually worked as he advanced further towards the exit of the forest before coming across a little girl that seemed to be Academy age with blonde hair in a ponytail, wearing a black long-sleeved shirt underneath an orange sleeveless dress with black leggings.

She was watching a Caterpie that seemed to be cocooning itself into a Metapod with a smile on her face at the process until she noticed Naruto coming her way, "Hello." She said cheerfully.

Walking up to her, Naruto returned the smile she was giving him before speaking, "Hi. What are you doing all the way in here by yourself?"

"Well, I live around Viridian City." The little girl said, pointing in the direction that she knew was Viridian City, "I come in here all the time to see Pokémon. It's dangerous to go alone, but my friends couldn't come today. My name's Yellow."

"Yellow?" Naruto said with a raised eyebrow at another person named after a color, "Is that really your name?"

"Well no. It's more of a nickname my friends call me. My real name is really long." The girl admitted bashfully, "I like it though. What's your name?"

"Naruto." Naruto said, pointing at himself with a grin, "Viridian City is pretty far away isn't it? How did you get this far into the woods by yourself?"

Yellow gave Naruto a confused look before she realized that he wasn't a local, "Oh, that's right. You probably don't know about the shortcut from Viridian City to Pewter City. It's kind of out of the way, but you don't need to deal with coming in here through one side and maybe getting lost." She saw Naruto's jaw dropped at learning that there was a straightforward path to Pewter City that didn't involve the forest," Do you… do you want me to show you where it is? It's near my house."

"That would be great." Naruto said with a grateful smile. Shortcuts were always good. Yellow grabbed his hand and started to lead him, but that whole walking thing was too slow for Naruto. He was absolutely done with Viridian Forest and wanted to get the hell out, "Do you mind if we go a bit faster?" He asked.

Giving Naruto an apologetic smile, Yellow shook her head, "Sorry. I can't run that fast. I don't have any Pokémon either so I don't have any that could help."

"That's okay."

And just like that, Naruto scooped Yellow up on his back piggyback style and took off in a run much to her surprise, not only because he just picked her up, but because he was very fast. Faster than humans were supposed to be.

It was fun though, and it didn't take long for her to start laughing at the exciting run.

But this time Naruto took care to stay out of the trees for Yellow's safety.

With her directions, Naruto took himself right out of the woods and down a somewhat hidden side trail near a tunnel that Yellow pointed out as Diglett Cave where she told him it was dug entirely by a certain kind of Pokémon. He'd have to investigate that later, but not too much longer later, the amicable meeting between the two came to an end.

Yellow still had a bad case of the giggles when she asked Naruto to let her down. It took her a moment to come down from the great ride she had taken to get there, better than any bike she had ridden before, "Okay." She started, still laughing a little bit, "If you want to take the shortcut just come here and go straight south from here until you get to the Viridian side of the forest. That way you don't have to go through the forest at all." She waved and then took off running, excited from being carried by Naruto, "Bye Naruto! Thanks, I've got to go home now!"

"Do you want me to take you the rest of the way?" He asked, trying to be nice to the girl that had helped him out with something to keep in mind for later.

"No, I can do it!" Yellow yelled back to him, not stopping, "Go to Pewter City! See you!"

Naruto just waved at Yellow until she got out of sight, 'She was a cute little girl. Really nice too.' It was always good to meet people like that in the world especially considering that he knew of so many evil ones, and he'd definitely be coming back to make sure she was doing okay. Naruto thought to himself before taking off in his own direction north to reach his intended destination.

XxX

(Pewter City)

The city was surrounded by cliffs and mountains, giving the whole place a very rugged feel to it. The roads were paved with grey brick and there were fields set up as named parks where people took their Pokémon to walk and to battle with other trainers for fun and experience.

Naruto himself had enough of Pokémon Battles from the amount of time he had spent in Viridian Forest beating the crap out of bug Pokémon and a few Pidgey that had tried to attack him while training, as well as a copious amount of Magikarp with his Shellder.

His team was well rested from their time in their Poke Balls, so that wasn't an issue for Naruto, with no reason to head to a Pokémon Center. His problem at the time, which became abundantly clear when he walked through what seemed to be a market portion of town with many tents set up in a bazaar style selling many things, was that he had no money in the form of Kanto's currency.

So with no money, Naruto simply left the marketplace altogether and went up to sit on the steps of a very large building that gave him very good shade from the sun. He had kept from dipping into his stash of ramen he had brought from home while in Viridian Forest due to the abundance of goods to eat, but that wasn't always going to be a guaranteed thing. Eventually he'd get caught somewhere without a Pokémon Center or anything to forage for or catch.

'Heh, I'm a survivor, I'll be fine.' He thought to himself confidently but just then as if to contradict him his stomach let out an audible growl, "Then again… I need a way to make some money." He said, thunking himself in the belly lightly with his fist as if to admonish himself for letting him know that he was getting hungry.

"You!"

Naruto's head snapped up and he started looking around for the person who called his name to turn around and see them standing there. A tall young man with spiky brown hair, hiking boots, green cargo pants, and an orange v-neck shirt with a black t-shirt underneath it seemed to be looking at and talking to him. Naruto couldn't really tell because his eyes seemed to be closed. Naruto pointed to himself as if to ask if he was who the young man was talking to only to get a nod.

"What are you doing sitting out here at this hour?" He asked rather sternly, "The museum closed over an hour ago. You need to clear out for security to set up for tonight."

Security. That was perfect. It was if Kami herself had just answered Naruto's monetary woes with this bountiful opportunity dropped directly into his lap, and it would be pure blasphemy to refrain from trying to take advantage of it.

With a grin on his face, Naruto jumped up and turned to face the young man, "Is this place hiring?"

The young man's closed eye stare was enough to get him to back down a bit before he even spoke, "You want to work security for the museum? Why?" Naruto fished out his frog wallet and showed him what was inside, "I don't know what kind of currency that is." He admitted, finally seeing Naruto's point, "Oh, so you just want to earn a quick buck."

"Yeah." Naruto said, tucking his wallet back safely in his pocket, "So are you the head guard or something? Or do I talk to someone else about this or what?"

"No, I'm the main guard for the night shift. My name is Brock." He said, introducing himself and scrutinizing Naruto a bit, "You know, you don't look like much. What makes you think you could protect this place?"

With that question, Naruto chuckled and pointed at himself, "I've watched over bridge builders, princesses, all kinds of stuff." He said, listing his own past accomplishments, "I can definitely watch this place." As for proof, he reached for his own ninja identification, "Here."

Brock took the small laminated card with a raised eyebrow, "Ninja ID?" Naruto definitely didn't look like a ninja, but he did look dead serious about everything he was saying, and from the way his stomach was growling he must have needed the job if only for one night. He'd have to be a cold bastard to just kick the kid away, "Can you stay awake until sun up?" Naruto nodded furiously in response, "Then come back at 8 pm and I'll give you the rundown of your job. Get a bit of rest."

Naruto let out a whoop and ran off to the Pokémon Center to get the Pokémon he had left there to rest and heal, happy to inform them that they'd be getting some good food very soon at the conclusion of their protection detail that night.

Shaking his head and sighing at how a Gym Leader like him could be goaded into lowering his guard for some random kid, Brock walked home to catch a short nap of his own prior to taking the night shift.

On the top of the museum as Brock left, a small figure crawled down the side towards the ground. It was a green spider with six yellow and black striped legs, two large eyes, a small white horn on its head, and black spots on its torso. After crawling down the side of the building, avoiding sight due to the closing time of the museum, it walked through the grass, blending in until it reached a row of trees.

It crawled up the trunk of a tree and found a person sitting hidden on a branch, "So you've got the place cased Spinarak?" The person, a female asked as the spider crawled up into her lap, "I went in myself today to get a good feel for the place, but I'm going to have to rely on you to show me some good places to sneak in from."

"Spinarak!" The little spider (little in comparison to humans) seemed happy to help and had just the places that the girl was looking for.

With a giggle, the girl gave the little Pokémon a rub on the thorax that it seemed to enjoy as thanks for its diligent work thus far, "This place isn't going to know what hit it, and then it'll be time to get ourselves paid."

XxX

(Hours Later – Pewter Museum of Science)

Naruto let out a yawn as he walked around the vacant and darkened museum floor with Ranbouen at his side for company. It had been a very boring night thus far and a yawn of equal boredom from the Growlithe at his side let him know that the feeling was expressly mutual between them.

The floor level of the museum had many exhibits detailing Pokémon of legend and from the past, even with some fossils showing the skeletal structure of some strange bipedal, large headed Pokémon with two sickles for claws on its arms called a Kabutops, and another nasty looking flying Pokémon called an Aerodactyl. Those were certainly two nasty looking creatures to run into for sure.

While Naruto seemed to be doing more sightseeing than anything else, it was because Ranbouen was on the job, and his nose was just as reliable as a ninken. For the last few hours they had been doing the rounds along with the other security guards and Ranbouen had been getting the scent of the place down to memory. Every nook and cranny, every smell of every contour his nose could reach into.

It was funny to watch, but then again Naruto did tell him that he wanted Ranbouen to have the entire scent of the place down. And if nothing else, Ranbouen was obedient and diligent.

But Brock, he wasn't a security guard. Unlike everyone else with the exception of Naruto, Brock didn't wear a uniform. So was he freelancing the way Naruto was? The curiosity was killing Naruto so the next go around when he found Brock he stopped to ask him about it, "Hey Brock why are _you_ doing this job? You're not a real guard."

Brock smirked for a second at being busted out over the whole thing before his face took on its previous stony façade, "Well I've got a lot of siblings to support, and my real job pays pretty well, but I need a little something extra to keep things going smoothly. Just to keep them all comfortable." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, "Here, these are my brothers and sisters."

Naruto sweatdropped when he saw pictures of nine different kids that all looked similar to Brock but he nodded all the same, "That's nice. Having siblings must be cool."

"Not when you're the oldest and your parents are gone." Brock said with a sigh. But dumping his problems on Naruto wasn't advisable. He was just a kid, "What about you Naruto? You aren't from Pewter City so where are you from and what brings you here?"

"I'm not even from this continent." Naruto said, proud of this fact, "I came here to study Pokémon for my village… and to train for three years before I go home."

A whole village sent one kid to study Pokémon for them? They must have had a lot of faith in him to send him overseas by himself to do something so potentially dangerous, "Wow." Brock muttered, "That's pretty heavy. I'll bet your parents are proud of you."

"I hope they are." Naruto said with a wistful smile before choosing to end the conversation at that and continue on with his patrol.

It took him a few minutes to set the thoughts of his parents and the lack of what he knew about them aside, as those feelings wouldn't help him at all at staying sharp. With this in mind, Naruto ventured from the depths of the museum back to the front desk by the entrance. Behind the desk sat a reasonably-sized lab that the workers at the museum used for analyzing the fossils brought in from Mt. Moon a few miles away from Pewter City. It was a pretty important place so doing rounds there was paramount more so than other places.

"Oops sorry." Naruto suddenly stated once he saw that there was already a guard there coming from behind the counter. There wasn't any need for two guards to sweep the same place and that would leave a hole in security somewhere else, "I didn't think this place would be covered so I came to do it."

The guard just smiled and waved the whole thing off as the two separated and continued on their own ways.

"Grr… Growl!" Ranbouen barked, stopping both Naruto and the guard in their tracks.

Naruto whipped around to see his Pokémon baring his teeth at the guard as if they were the enemy. Naruto didn't even have to ask the question, instead narrowing his eyes at the fake guard, "Ranbouen says you're a fake. He has the scent of all the guards and yours doesn't match what you look like apparently."

The guard instead of denying anything just smirked at Naruto and Ranbouen, "Ah. I still need to train that part better, but it doesn't matter." A girl's voice said, coming out of the seemingly male guard's body, "I've got what I came for. Grimer, use Poison Gas!" The disguise of a guard was cast off at Naruto before a cloud of purple gas was fired at him and Ranbouen.

Upon hearing Poison Gas and seeing it be sent out at his Pokémon, Naruto grabbed Ranbouen and dove clear of the gas to keep his Growlithe in the best of health, not risking getting his dog poisoned, "Ugh." Naruto said, having sacrificed his body on the dive to save Ranbouen, "Are you alright buddy?"

"Growlithe." Ranbouen responded with a nod before getting back up and shaking himself off as Naruto picked him up and started running with him, "Grow-Growl!" Ranbouen jerked his head towards a flight of stairs leading to an upstairs level, telling Naruto that this was the way that the intruder went.

Naruto stormed his way up the stairs only to see a shadowy figure standing on the sill of an open window preparing to dive out, "Hey! Stop! Give back what you took or I'll kick your ass!"

All that did was get the figure in the window to grin widely at him before jumping out, getting a gasp out of Naruto as he raced over to the window to try and do something. It was a four story fall. That would mess even his legs up. But he didn't have to worry about that at all.

"Go Zubat!"

Because the thief was riding, holding on to the two skinny long legs of her Pokémon, a blue bat with no eyes or nose and four large visible fangs in its mouth. He could swear that even in the dark of the night he could see the person turn towards him and blow him a kiss, getting Naruto to blush slightly with an angry look on his face, "Oh hell no." Naruto wasted no more time in running back downstairs where he found Brock heading upstairs, "Thief, outside, getting away!"

"What?" Brock asked, but with Naruto running past him, jumping downstairs in a rush he couldn't really make out what Naruto was saying as the boy ran right out the front door, letting out a yell of surprise once he reached the door, "What happened?"

Upon opening the front doors to the museum, Naruto ran directly into a wall of sturdy spider webbing, trapping both him and Ranbouen, "…I really don't like this thief. I'm fine Brock, just stay here, I'll handle this! Ranbouen use Ember!" Ranbouen shot flaming sparks and burned through the web that just detained them for a few valuable seconds longer, "Can you still smell her?" Ranbouen let out a bark of affirmation as Naruto continued to carry him, trying to give chase "Let's finish this then!"

XxX

(Viridian Forest – Pewter City Entrance)

"Oh man that was so easy." The thief said to herself, the Spinarak sitting on her head, and the minimized Grimer in her pocket as she shifted a sack she was carrying around her waist, "You guys were perfect back there. Now all we have to do is get this stuff to the guy in Viridian City that hired us and we'll be set." She'd be there and paid by sunrise.

Until she had to dodge a set of shuriken and a blast of Ember from her assailant. Landing safely, avoiding injury to either herself or her Pokémon that she still kept close on her person, she let out a huff at seeing Naruto and Ranbouen glaring at her, "You again? Even with your Growlithe tracking my scent you're still really fast to catch me out here. I didn't even get a chance to give my Pokémon a breather."

"What did you take from the museum?" Naruto asked again, more forcefully this time, "Cough it up."

The moon finally shone through the clouds in the sky, putting some light on the girl Naruto had been chasing. She was his age and had dark hair put up in a spiky ponytail, wore an entire mesh bodysuit, dark purple shin-guards, tabi socks and sandals, dark purple grieves on her hands, a purple sleeveless and short-skirt kunoichi's battle dress with a red sash around her waist, and a red scarf that trailed off behind her neck.

"You think you can keep up with someone like me." The girl said with a smirk, "That's really cute. You should just turn around and go home before you get yourself hurt. The underworld of Kanto is more dangerous than a babyfaced trainer like you can handle with a puppy at your side."

"You're a ninja." Naruto said as a statement instead of a question. He knew what a ninja looked like, but those clothes were very old-fashioned for a shinobi. No one in the Elemental Nations really wore that stuff anymore unless they were trying to intentionally look like a throwback, "So am I. So don't tell me that I can't handle anything."

The girl let out a laugh at pointed at Naruto, "You're a ninja? What's with those clothes? And that color. Are you trying to stand out like a sore thumb or what?"

Instead of rising to the insult of his orange, Naruto just grinned at her mischievously, "If you're good…" He said before disappearing in a puff of smoke right before her eyes much to her amazement, "What you wear doesn't matter!"

Turning around at the sound of the shout, the girl faced five more Narutos coming right at her and jumped away from them suddenly in amazement, 'He set up such an elaborate illusion in that much time? He had to have. There was no way he got here before me!' She thought to herself, impressed at Naruto's little mirror and light trick, "Time to break it and find the real one though! Spinarak, use Poison Sting!"

The Spinarak on her head started firing multiple white needles at the Narutos, hitting them all and forcing them into smoky oblivion, much to her confusion.

"Growl!" While the original Naruto that had been standing with Ranbouen had been a fake, Ranbouen himself had been real, and when Janine jumped and defended herself against his clones, Ranbouen knew an opening when he saw one and blasted at her with his Ember attack.

The ninja girl turned towards Ranbouen and covered herself up as she took the shots and wound up knocked onto her back. From her pocket crawled a miniature-sized Pokémon that retook its full size to fight Ranbouen directly, "Grimer!" The Pokémon cried. Its form was a purple pile of living sludge with eyes and a mouth, "Grime!"

"Grimer use Mud-Slap!" Upon being ordered, the walking embodiment of pollution reached underneath itself and threw polluted mud right into Ranbouen's eyes, getting a cry of pain out of the Growlithe as it tried to shake it out of his eyes, "What are you going to do without your Pokémon now?" The girl said as she got back up from the ground, Spinarak still on her head.

"Kick your ass like I said before! Bunshin Kaiten Kakato Otoshi (Clone Spinning Heel Drop)!"

The girl saw three Narutos come out from Ranbouen's flanks to rush right at her, faster than she could backstep away from, "Spinarak, String Shot!" The spider Pokémon on her head fired webbing from its mouth at one of the Narutos, encasing it entirely, "Ha! I got the real one!" But the other two Narutos were still coming, much to her surprise, "How?"

"Gotcha!" The two other blondes yelled as they slammed down jumping heel kicks on the top of her head and shoulder, hitting the Spinarak as well, "Ranbouen, use Odor Sleuth to find your target and then use Ember!"

Upon hearing Naruto's voice, Ranbouen calmed down about its lack of good vision due to Mud-Slap and started to use its nose, sniffing the air before growling and turning towards the Grimer that seemed more concerned with the fact that its trainer had been attacked directly, "Grow-Growlithe!" Opening his mouth, Ranbouen fired his barrage of angry fire sparks from his mouth, pounding the back of the Grimer's head mercilessly until it fell down unconscious.

The girl that was knocked onto her back reached for a third Poke Ball but had it kicked out of her hand by Naruto before she could call her Pokémon out, "Aah! Zubat no!" She tried to move to grab the ball, but the sack of goods around her waist went loose and spilled all over the ground, "Damn it!" She dove for the goods but was too slow to get to them all.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Naruto formed enough clones to scoop up all of the stuff; fossils, old shells, other sorts of things of the like. Everything that the girl had taken from the museum and had stashed in that sack now lay in the hands of Naruto's clones that were all grinning at her cheesily.

"I can't believe this." The ninja girl said as she recalled her Pokémon back to their balls, as the two of them were knocked out by the coordinated assault from Naruto and Ranbouen, "What were those things you made? Those weren't mirror reflections… they move independently and can touch things. I've never seen any ninja technique that really makes copies of the user." He really was a ninja. Or he was something extraordinary at least.

Ranbouen was still walking around blind and Naruto ran over to the puppy as he stumbled around trying to shake the crud out of his eyes, "It's alright. I've got you." He said, using a bottle of water from his pack to wet a portion of his top to try and scrub out Ranbouen's eyes.

"Who are you?" The girl asked, crawling over to her Zubat's Poke Ball, trying to look more hurt than she really was. It seemed to be working because the clones seemed kind of remorseful that she had been injured by both Naruto and Ranbouen. Though she honestly did want to know his name. You didn't see something like what she had seen that night every day.

"Uzumaki Naruto." One of the clones said before another one spoke up, "Just so you know the name of the guy that kicked your ass, dattebayo." Another one finished smugly, shifting the fossils and whatnot in his arms, "Why were you stealing this stuff?"

'That's it girl, just keep him talking until you get your last Pokémon back.' While she was feigning some of the pain, most of it was still very real. There wasn't much acting required, "Oh I don't know. There's this rich guy with deep pockets in Viridian City. Probably some kind of collector. He wanted fossils and prehistoric Pokémon stuff. It was good money. Hey, I could cut you in if you let me go and let me have the stuff."

Even with monetary problems, Naruto wasn't going to resort to ripping off a museum. He'd steal from bad guys if he had to steal from anyone, and nothing was going to compromise his integrity, "No thanks. I promised I'd guard the museum and I don't go back on my word. That's my nindo."

"Your nindo…" The girl said as she stopped crawling upon reaching her Zubat, "…Well I'll remember that for later Uzumaki Naruto. Sorry, but I'm not really a fan of being caught." She maximized the size of the Poke Ball and quickly let her Pokémon out, "Zubat use Supersonic!"

Visible yellow waves of energy came from the Zubat's mouth faster than anyone could see cleanly and brought Naruto and his clones to their knees with a piercing sound that harmed Ranbouen as well. Some of the clones were even forced to dispel from the pain of the move.

This opening was what the girl needed to get up and take off into the forest with her last remaining Pokémon to try and escape, "You probably can't hear a damn thing right now but I'll say it anyway; this was fun. From one ninja to another, my name is Janine. Later!"

Naruto did so happen to hear her, though it was muffled over the remnants of her Zubat's Supersonic. The further away she got, the more the sound tapered off, finally going away completely, "Man… a ninja in Kanto?" He hadn't been expecting that, "And I thought I was unique." Naruto then turned around and saw Ranbouen firing random Embers, confused from the Supersonic.

Wondering what was wrong with him, Naruto just had Ranbouen return to his Poke Ball as the remainder of his clones gathered up the fossils and whatnot in Janine's sack, dispelling after their job was complete. Naruto scooped up the sack and threw it over his shoulder before beginning to head off back to Pewter City.

Tonight had been very eventful. The pay for actually keeping this stuff safe for a threat had to be great for the headache that it was to chase Janine down to get it all back.

A siren cut down on Naruto's insightful thinking time and Naruto went on the defensive as a bulky and fast vehicle with two wheels that he had never seen came to a sudden stop in front of him, the woman on it getting off and holding up a pair of handcuffs, "Freeze thief."

Naruto looked around for Janine, seeing no one other than himself, "Are you talking to me?"

The woman had blue hair and wore a dark blue hat on her head as well as a dark blue skirt and uniformed shirt, "Of course. There's no one else here carrying stolen fossils from the Pewter Museum of Science but you. Now just surrender peacefully."

Naruto palmed his face with his free hand before going on a tirade, "Are you kidding me? I chase the real thief all over town and out to the woods and when I finally get the stuff back I get accused of being the one stealing it? This is harassment! And another thing; why the hell did it take so long for anyone to get off of their ass and help me? I had to-!"

As Naruto continued his tirade, the lady cop simply ignored him, got on the radio installed in her motorcycle and called in to the police station back in Pewter City with a deadpan look on her face, "Yeah this is Officer Jenny. The stolen fossils from the Pewter Museum of Science were recovered, but the thief is nowhere in sight."

"-Where's Brock? Didn't he tell anyone I was out here chasing the thief? Me and a Growlithe got out here faster than anybody else and you've got that fancy riding machine of yours too!"

"…Also tell the museum that they need to select calmer security guards in the future."

XxX

(The Next Day – Pewter City – Pokémon Center)

"So you're telling me that you're _not_ the Nurse Joy from Cinnabar Island, but you're that Nurse Joy's cousin?" Naruto said disbelievingly, leaning against the front counter where the Joy was standing, diligently answering his random question, "Are you sure you're not the same Nurse Joy just following me, because I seriously can't tell the difference." Naruto looked at his recently healed Growlithe and asked him, "Ranbouen is this the same lady?" Ranbouen shook his head no immediately, "No one looks that much alike without being twins… unless you know Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto accused.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about." Nurse Joy said, wondering just how Naruto could be that fired up in the morning without even having any breakfast, "But you can tell that I'm different. You see, I'm a third of an inch shorter than her. It's very easy to distinguish us apart."

Still giving her a scrutinizing, paranoid glance, Naruto decided to just take her word for it… for now. Until he could prove otherwise at least, "Okay. If you say so." He got Ranbouen back into his Poke Ball and took both him and Hogohei after thanking Nurse Joy for helping them. Today was the day when he was going to see what the Pewter Gym was all about, and there wasn't anything in the world that was going to stop him this time around.

Stepping outside into the warm air, Naruto stretched himself out thoroughly, preparing to personally lay a major beatdown on the Gym Leader once he reached his doorstep, "No flukes like in Viridian City. There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide! You're getting it today Gym Leader guy!"

"You're going to try and battle the Pewter Gym Leader huh? What a guy."

"You bet!" Naruto said, turning to grin at the person that had just complimented him only to find the point of his attention sitting on the awning of the Pokémon Center, "Wait! Didn't I just beat seven shades of shit out of you last night? Why are you back?"

Sitting on the awning of the center waving her legs, Janine rolled her eyes before hopping down to the ground in front of Naruto, "Because I have Pokémon… Pokémon that you 'beat seven shades of shit' out of last night. And I am a trainer."

"You're a thief."

"I'm a ninja, same as you, we were just on opposite sides last night." Janine said with a very pleasant smile, "But I want us to be friends. Don't you want to be friends?" All she got in return was a pronounced frown from Naruto, "Look, because I failed last night I'm out a lot of money. Money I was going to use to get back home easier. So all I'm asking is that you deal with me until we get to my home. You're a traveler aren't you?"

Still, Naruto just stared at her without flinching, "I don't even know why you came back here. You're probably wanted."

"Another reason to let me go with you." Janine pointed out clasping her hands together in front of him, "You're the only person that saw me last night, so to everyone else I'm not a thief, I'm just a girl dressed like a ninja. And if I'm not with you, you won't know what I'm doing." She said in a sing-song voice, "I could be stealing anything, but if I'm with you, you can keep me out of trouble until you get me home."

The caw of a Spearow was the only thing breaking the silence between the two, with Janine smirking and Naruto giving her a look that showed his brain was working overtime to think his way out of this, "Do you really think you can steal that much and get away with it?"

"I can try just to prove a point if that's a challenge." Turning around away from Janine she held up Naruto's Pokédex and started thumbing through the entries, "Hm, this thing's pretty empty. You haven't seen many Pokémon have you?"

Naruto checked the inner breast pocket of his top and felt that she had swiped his Pokédex at some point in their most recent meeting, "Give me that!" Naruto said, snatching it back and getting a mischievous grin in return, "So you're saying I'm responsible for you?"

"I'm a ninja… you're a ninja." Holding up her hands like a pair of scales, Janine feigned balancing them both out, "And you beat me, so yes you are responsible for me. Just take me home hero. That's all I want. I know the way so we can go there through the other towns."

On one hand, he had just been in a fight with her not even twelve hours ago and she had almost gotten away with ripping off many priceless fossils. But on the other hand there was his damn sense of nobility that kept urging him to keep an eye on her so that she didn't steal. Also he just couldn't ignore a pretty girl asking him for a favor.

Oh why the hell not? He'd done bigger favors for people that had done worse things to him in the past. She hadn't even stolen from _him_. It was from the museum. And he stopped her so it was all good.

Besides, it was getting lonely without anyone human to hang out with either.

"Fine." Naruto said, allowing her the concession of travelling with him, "But you're gonna have to be good. No stealing."

"Cross my heart." Janine said, making the apropos hand gesture until she gave him an urging look, "Really? No stealing at all? Not even a little bit?"

"No." Naruto asserted, crossing his arms over his chest with finality until he had a second to think about it, "…Well maybe sometimes." He wouldn't say never. Sometimes stealing was the right thing to do. It was more of a judgment call, "We'll see."

And Janine could more than live with that, "Alright partner, let's go get you a Gym Badge!"

"A Gym Badge?"

"Yeah. You get a Gym Badge when you beat Gym Leaders in battles. It shows you won."

So after breaking his foot off in this guy's ass in his own Gym he'd give Naruto visual proof that he did indeed run him over and leave him out cold? This whole Gym thing was sounding better and better by the day.

"You're lucky that I know a lot about the Gyms in Kanto." Janine said as she led Naruto through the streets of Pewter City towards the Gym in question, "I'm probably the best person you could have with you for this. If you can beat the eight Gyms in this country you can go to the Indigo Plateau and fight in a huge tournament to prove you're the strongest in the world." The kunoichi tapped her own head with her finger, "I know _way_ too much about this stuff, and until we get to my home I can tell you what you need to know."

XxX

(Pewter Gym)

In a corner of the town, a large building made seemingly from stone comprised the Gym that Naruto and Janine opened the very large doors to. If that weren't intimidating to most people, the entire field on the inside of it had rocks, jagged and massive, strewn throughout. Upon entering, the trainers that were a part of the Gym stopped and began staring at Naruto and Janine with some hostility. Above the fields along the high walls there were balconies for those that wished to spectate and those people were also looking at the pair with less than kind intent.

"Are you sure you want to take a Gym Challenge this soon?" Janine whispered to Naruto as they walked inside, "We could always come back some other time. No need to fight if you're not ready."

"I'm ready." Naruto said to reassure her, punching his fist into his palm, "I was going to fight at the Gym in Viridian City, but the Gym Leader isn't there." He then pointed out at all of the people littering the battlefield in different sections while doing their own training, "So if anyone here has a problem with me being here to fight the guy, I'll just go through everyone I have to just to prove my point!"

"That isn't going to be necessary Naruto."

The sound of the voice echoing throughout the hall got every person that had been glaring at Naruto previously to turn towards the back end of the Gym to someone sitting on a flat rock.

Naruto squinted at the person and ran in past all of the trainers until he was able to see who it was, "Brock? What are you doing here? I thought you had a day job."

"This is my day job Naruto." Brock said, standing up from his seat on his rock and dusting the back of his pants off, "I'm the Gym Leader of the Pewter City Gym. Surprise." He then smirked a bit while looking at his diminutive blonde friend, "You know, I knew I'd be seeing you here soon enough."

"Okay then." Naruto said, slapping his face a few times before setting himself into a fighting stance, "Get over here and let's go! Who's reffing the fight?"

Brock raised an eyebrow at Naruto's behavior, as did Janine, "What are you doing?"

Confused at why Brock was confused, Naruto stood up and scratched his head, "Err… I was getting ready to fight. Isn't that what we're supposed to do here? I fight you, I kick your ass, you give me a Gym Badge to prove that I beat you. Right?"

Janine shook her head, "Naruto, you don't fight the Gym Leader yourself. You use your Pokémon to beat the Gym Leader's Pokémon in a battle."

"What kind of stupid way to fight is that?" Naruto asked belligerently, not understanding the concept in all, "If that's how it goes I should be able to fight too right? In the Elemental Nations a ninja fights beside their summoned animal. If my Pokémon have to fight I should fight too."

"That's not how this works Naruto." Urged Janine, grabbing his arm to pull him back, "This isn't really a test of your strength. It's a test of your Pokémon's. The way you fought last night you probably could beat the pants right off of Brock in a fight." Hearing Janine say that put a tick mark on Brock's head that they ignored, "And yeah, it would be a no contest, but this is a Pokémon Battle situation."

"Gah, what kind of crazy Gym is this?"

"A Pokémon Gym… for Pokémon Trainers"

"Nobody told me that. It just says 'Gym' on the front."

"…Everyone's supposed to know that already."

A loud echoing smack went out from Naruto palming his face hard enough to leave a red print once he moved his hand, "You know what? Fine. It's okay, because Ranbouen and Hogohei are strong enough to kick ass even _without_ me fighting." He held out a straight-arm fist right at Brock, "So I still want to battle Brock. Bring it on."

"I accept." Brock said plainly, leaving no room for argument from any of the underling trainers in the gym, "Clear the floor." He demanded, getting everyone to leave except for himself, Naruto, and Janine, "I meant everyone else." He said with a pointed look at Janine.

Taking the hint, Janine held her hands up defensively, "I can referee the battle. I'm qualified, trust me." She said, getting into a staredown with the Pewter Gym Leader until he nodded, "Brock uses rock Pokémon. It's hard to hurt them unless you have a water Pokémon and your Growlithe probably won't do so hot against any of them." She said before moving towards the center of the sideline of the field, out of the way of getting involved, "What are your terms?" Janine asked Brock.

"This is going to be a series of one-on-one battles with the trainers only able to use two Pokémon each." Brock said, explaining the rules, "The challenger can switch out between his two Pokémon at any time while the battle is in session."

"Alright." Janine looked towards Naruto to make sure he was ready, getting a nod from the foreign shinobi, "Challenger Uzumaki Naruto vs. Gym Leader of Pewter City, Brock. Begin!"

Brock tossed a Poke Ball up and down in one hand before throwing it forward to release his Pokémon in a flash of white light, "I'll start with Geodude!"

From the ball came a grey floating boulder with muscular rock arms and five-fingered hands, "Dude! Geodude!" The Pokémon cried upon its release and entry into the battle.

"Okay then. I'll save Hogohei as a trump card." Naruto said quietly to himself before grabbing his other Poke Ball that housed a Pokémon and throwing it forward, "Ranbouen, you've got this buddy!" From his own respective housing orb, Ranbouen came out and looked around before locking his eyes on Geodude and growling at him.

"Your Growlithe?" Brock observed as Growlithe howled in response, "Not the best choice to go against rock Pokémon, but you'll find that out soon enough."

"Blah, blah, blah, whatever. Ranbouen, Ember!" Upon Naruto's order, the Growlithe fired off his sparks from his mouth that bounced off of the blocking Geodude's body, not showing much of an effect at all, "Okay. I had to try it anyway."

"I told you so." Brock said before pointing at Ranbouen, "Tackle!"

Geodude hurled its entire rocky body at Ranbouen, smashing into the fire dog and knocking him to the ground. But Ranbouen rolled over and stood back on his feet growling at the rock Pokémon as it came right at him again.

"Dig!"

Ranbouen started swiftly burrowing his way underground, dodging the Tackle by his fleet actions, but Brock was not about to let him get away so easily, "You're at a total disadvantage in a situation like that. Your Pokémon isn't the only one who can Dig. Geodude, follow him down."

Naruto smirked and stomped his foot hard on the ground several times in a rhythmic pattern only for Ranbouen to pop out of a hole right in front of Naruto, "Return!" Naruto ordered, recalling Ranbouen to his Poke Ball, "Go Hogohei!" Without missing a beat, Naruto switched over to his Shellder just in time for Brock's Geodude to pop out of the hole right in front of him, "Water Gun!"

Brock cringed at the sheer speed in which Naruto switched his Pokémon. They were never on the field at the same time, but by the time he had thrown his second Poke Ball and it touched the ground Ranbouen had been fully recalled. And his Geodude had been suckered right into a trap.

The forceful blast of water came right from the middle of Hogohei's open shell, spraying Geodude and bringing it down to the ground, visibly weakened from the move.

Brock began to sweat a bit but did not relent in his efforts to win, "Geodude, Rock Throw!" The Pokémon punched the ground and sent rocks flying at Hogohei in a form of a distance attack.

"Hogohei, Withdraw!" The Shellder shut its shell tight as the rocks bounced off of it mostly harmlessly, "Now Clamp!" The shell flew right at Geodude before opening up, preparing to snap shut right on it.

"Defense Curl!" Brock ordered, watching his Geodude curl up into a ball as Naruto's Shellder landed onto the Pokémon and began squeezing tightly, relentless to the extent that Geodude couldn't uncurl itself, "What a tight hold."

"…Dude…" The Geodude said, straining under the sheer pressure of Hogohei's shell strength.

There was no way that Brock could recall his Geodude as long as it was stuck in Hogohei's Clamp as tightly as it was and Geodude wouldn't last long enough for it to loosen up, leaving him one viable option to get something out of this, "…Geodude, Self-Destruct."

"Self-what?" Naruto said, with a hint of worry in his voice.

Geodude began to glow white while still trapped in Hogohei's pressurized hold, but then a resounding blast erupted from its body, engulfing itself and Naruto's Shellder. The smoke cleared to show both Pokémon motionless on the ground as a result of the move.

Janine could see the expression on Geodude's face, that Hogohei's shell was on its side with its tongue hanging out and decided to call it, "Both Pokémon are unable to battle. Both Challenger Uzumaki Naruto and Gym Leader Brock have one Pokémon remaining each."

"Damn it, what kind of attack was that?" Naruto exclaimed, worriedly over his Shellder's well-being "Return!" This had to end so that he could get Hogohei to a Pokémon Center. With only one possible Pokémon available, Naruto sent Ranbouen back out to fight the rest of the battle, "One down, one to go." He said to himself as a flash of white light went along with the return of his Growlithe to the battlefield.

"Growwwlithe!"

Brock recalled his defeated Geodude and held up his second Poke Ball for all to see before throwing it, "If you think it'll be that easy you obviously don't know what my second Pokémon is." In a pop of white light, an absolutely mammoth sight awaited Naruto upon the Pokémon's release, "Say hello to Onix."

Onix was a large, segmented rock snake that was 30 feet long, towering over and across Ranbouen and Naruto with a large rock spike at the top of its head. Upon seeing Ranbouen and knowing that it was about to be in battle, Onix let out titanic roar.

Naruto's jaw dropped as he pulled out his Pokédex to see what he could get on this Pokémon, _"Onix; the Rock Snake Pokémon. It tunnels through the ground which shakes when it raises its thunderous roar. It can move the ground at fifty miles per hour."_

"Oh man…" Naruto said as he looked down at Ranbouen, "This might not end that well." As he held up his Poke Ball, Ranbouen bit Naruto's hand to keep him from doing so, "Ow! Do you really want to fight this thing that bad?"

"Growl!" Ranbouen, despite it being his master's order and being a part of his rehearsed plan after learning Dig, was not happy with switching out in the middle of the last battle. He was a fighter and wanted to go down doing his best if it were to happen.

"Alright then." Naruto said, wishing he could step in to fight too. He didn't know how in the world Ranbouen was going to take this thing down, but if he wanted to try he wasn't going to stop him from fighting.

From Brock's point of view it certainly wasn't advisable or the wisest course of action to keep Ranbouen in, but he wasn't there to give advice, he was there to win battles. And if Naruto was going to serve Ranbouen up on a silver platter there was only one course of action to take; to beat him, "Onix, use Screech."

Onix turned its head towards Ranbouen and opened its mouth to let out a horrible grating noise from its throat that produced a wide-reaching light-blue cylinder beam of sound that no one in front of it could avoid, either Naruto or Ranbouen.

Rabouen felt the amplified effect of the noise due to his own acute hearing and grit his teeth while his legs started to shake while Naruto covered his ears and dug his feet into the ground as if he would stumble back if he didn't have a good base, 'How many different techniques do these Pokémon know how to use?' He thought to himself, barely able to hear his own mental speech over the noise. He tried to yell out a way for Ranbouen to respond, but he couldn't be heard over Onix's Screech.

The sound from Onix eventually ended as the massive rock snake looked at Ranbouen like a predator set to strike at its prey, "You aren't going to make a move?" Brock asked before giving Onix another command, "Bind it Onix!"

Onix rushed forward and began to coil its body around Ranbouen until Naruto yelled in alarm, "You'd better get out of that move Ranbouen! You've been dodging faster things than that since I got you!"

Not needing to be told anything else, Ranbouen jumped up out of what was about to be the equivalent of a python constricting its food and landed on Onix's rock-comprised body, almost falling off for a second before trying to mimic keeping his balance the way he had seen Naruto do on far more narrow surfaces.

"What is it doing?" Janine whispered to herself, watching Ranbouen run up the length of Onix's body, seemingly headed right for its head.

Dead-set on reaching the crown of the Onix, the Pokémon that was the target of this course of action almost let it just happen, out of sheer amazement of the insanity of it all. It probably would have let it happen until Naruto shouted an attack, "Let's see how it likes an Ember to the face!"

"Onix shake it off now!"

Onix began thrashing about wildly and sent Ranbouen flying into the air with one particular bump. When the dog was sent up into the air, it let off the Ember it had been preparing out of instinct. Due to his body flailing around though, his aim was extremely off, with blasts of sparks flying all over, missing people in the balcony, even hitting the ceiling.

But that was when the battle took a turn.

The burning hot sparks repeatedly pounding against the ceiling caused the fire alarm to go off and the sprinklers to start, covering both Ranbouen and Onix in water, causing great harm to them both as they were thoroughly soaked.

Onix recoiled in pain and collapsed from its upright position while Ranbouen fell to the ground, landing on his feet for a second, visibly wincing at the water covering and continuing to cover his body.

Still, neither of them were willing to fall and let the battle end for their respective trainer. Onix pulled itself back up to a lower than previously, but still towering over all position and faced off with Ranbouen again.

"Dig!"

Both Naruto and Brock ordered at the same time, as both Onix and Ranbouen swiftly burrowed their way underground, for different reasons however. For Brock, it was because Onix needed to get out of the spray of the sprinklers that were still shooting down on the rocky battlefield, 'He's not quitting, and he didn't panic for a second.' Brock thought to himself as he looked at the serious and focused look on Naruto's face. It was like night and day from earlier and from the previous evening at the museum.

It wasn't a hyperfocus that Brock saw often on many young trainers that only thought that winning was all-important, and everything else simply had to take a backseat until the battle was over. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but it was like Naruto had been in situations in the past that made this pale in comparison, and if he could find a way out of those situations he could keep his cool in this one.

On the other hand, Naruto's reason for getting Ranbouen to Dig was similar in original intent, to get him from underneath the sprinklers, but different in intended outcome. Namely for the singular reason that he could give Ranbouen rudimentary commands underneath the surface. Three very hard stomps from Naruto later and he just stood and waited.

"Those taps." Brock said, remembering how Naruto stomped his foot the first time Ranbouen used Dig against his Geodude, "What are those supposed to do? You're telling him to move towards you? That won't matter. Onix'll follow him out." He then noticed the grin on Naruto's face, "What's with that look?"

"I knew Ranbouen wouldn't be the only Pokémon out there that could learn Dig, so when we were in Viridian Forest I put in some other commands with it to make sure he'd have an advantage over others that tried to dig with him." Naruto said, very pleased with his own foresight, "I can order him to set up attacks from underground."

'That tricky little…' Brock thought to himself as the ground started to rumble, "That won't matter, it looks like Onix caught your Growlithe anyway. Now finish him Onix!" As if on cue, Onix burst out of the ground with Ranbouen on his nose, flinging him back into the air with a great roar. But still, Naruto wasn't calling out in alarm, he wasn't even sweating… not that anyone could tell anyway as he was drenched by the sprinkler, "Why aren't you worried?"

"Because you just helped me out. I've got a few patterns for him being down there." Naruto said with a huge grin as Ranbouen seemed to be positioning himself in the air, "Seven stomps in a row means I'm switching him when he comes back out, but three hard ones like I just did means that I want him to use an attack."

Ranbouen started falling down towards Onix, leading with the top of his head like a missile, and crashed into Onix's head, felling the great rock snake with the impact of the move added on to Onix being softened up with water. Brock's jaw dropped when he saw the thirty-foot Pokémon fall out with Ranbouen landing on his feet looking ready to continue if need be, "Skull Bash! You had it use Skull Bash?"

Onix's eyes were glassed over as it lay on the ground and Janine held up one of her arms to conclude the battle, "Onix is unable to battle! The winner is Growlithe, and the winner of the Pewter Gym Challenge is the Challenger Uzumaki Naruto!"

"Yeah!" Upon hearing his name announced as the winner, Naruto ran out to the field and picked up Ranbouen, "I'm never thinking you can't do anything ever again! That was awesome!" He then noticed that Ranbouen wasn't responding. A good look and a weak growl of his species name told Naruto that Ranbouen was knocked out as well, "Damn it! Are you alright? Ah, you're not alright…"

Brock recalled his Onix to its Poke Ball with a sigh and looked around at the balconies, "Someone can come down and turn off the sprinkler system now." He said as several of the other trainers got moving to do just that, "Your Growlithe is extremely tough… to outlast Onix under the sprinklers like that."

Naruto held up Ranbouen's Poke Ball and gave the poor Growlithe an apology and a big thanks for fighting like that before recalling him as well, "Yeah he is." He'd make a great ninken back in Konoha, and not just for the fire attacks either.

"You're just full of surprises aren't you?" Janine said to Naruto as she walked over, just as soaked as everyone else, "That kind of specialized training isn't normal you know." She could use her Pokémon as extensions of her own fighting and physical abilities, but Naruto had modified a particular Pokémon technique. That was entirely different.

Heading over to Janine and Naruto, Brock held up a small trinket in his hand, "Even if it was by a matter of seconds you still beat me. You win the Boulder Badge." The badge was a grey octagon with multiple segments to it. With that, Brock placed it into Naruto's hand and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

Looking at the small, apparently insignificant object, a little bit of pride swelled up in Naruto for the accomplishment that it represented. A chuckle emitted from his mouth that slowly broke into ecstatic laughter. It was almost as if he had won the battle himself watching his Pokémon do so.

XxX

(The Next Day – Outskirts of Pewter City)

"So you're really going to follow me until we get to your town?" Naruto said, backpack on his back and ready to move along as Janine walked along with him in step, "How do you even know I'll go past it?"

Janine shrugged in response, "Are you going to be trying to get more of those Gym Badges?" She asked, getting a nod from Naruto after a moment of thinking on the question, "Then you'll definitely be going past my hometown. Besides, I think you need me with you. That little slip-up at the Pewter Gym was kind of embarrassing. I'll make sure nothing like that happens again."

"…I'm not from around here." Naruto defended with a grumble, "In the Elemental Nations, a gym or a dojo is for people to train or fight in. The place didn't say 'Pokémon Gym', it just said 'Gym'." That revelation burst his bubble until he actually fought the battle against Brock.

Sparing Naruto a glance from the corner of her eye, Janine had to admit she was curious about Naruto's being a ninja for obvious reasons, "Well while we move could you tell me a bit about what this 'Elemental Nations' place is all about? Because I've never heard of this place."

Getting used to hearing such a thing by now, Naruto decided to let it slide. He'd probably be hearing that everywhere he went for the next three years, "Sure. If you tell me about Kanto. Where are we going next anyway?"

"East. To Cerulean City." The kunoichi-for-hire said, fishing a map out of seemingly nowhere much to Naruto's surprise as she didn't have any scrolls on her to summon them from, "Yeah, it's a route and then we can take a shortcut through Mt. Moon if you want to." She then noticed Naruto walking all around her, looking up, around, and under to try and find where she had gotten the map from, "If you look up my skirt I'll tie you up, cover you in Beedril honey, and drop you in the woods."

"Why's it so short then?" Naruto muttered, flinching slightly when she glared at him, "Okay. Geez, who do you think I am here? I'm not Ero-sennin."

"Who?"

"Don't worry about it for right now." Naruto waved the whole matter off, "You know you're taking losing to me the other day better than I thought you would."

A smile crossed Janine's face before she pulled out a small bit of fossilized amber, "Yeah, I got a consolation prize though." She said, sticking out her tongue before Naruto took it from her, "Hey I got that from right under your nose fair and square! It doesn't count towards the no stealing promise… I stole it before I even made the promise."

Naruto let out a grunt as he saw that there was nothing but a mosquito inside of the amber, "Meh… I guess this isn't that important. It's not like it's a Pokémon fossil. It's just a bug in tree sap." He said, handing it back to Janine and getting a sigh of relief from her.

'Thank goodness. I'm gonna make so much money off of this once we get to the right person to sell it to.' Janine thought to herself. Thankfully Naruto didn't know a damn thing about fossils or he would have been all goody-two-shoes about it and would have taken it right back to the museum, "So…" She said, trying to steer the conversation away from her secret pilfer, "Who's Ero-sennin?"

"Hope I get you home before you meet him." Naruto said, rolling his shoulder out, "He's a total pervert. It's kind of a disgrace."

XxX

(Sometime Later)

"Achoo!" Jiraiya sneezed, rubbing his nose as he stood on the deck of the ship before grinning goofily, "Heh, those cuties on Cinnabar Island must be telling their other sexy beach friends about their run-in with Jiraiya-sama."

"Jiraiya-sama, do you think this is far enough from Kanto? We want to get back to continue trading!"

Nodding in understanding, Jiraiya started going through his hand-seals, "We're about to find out gentlemen. Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!" A puff of smoke enshrouded the deck before the sound of wood smacking off of someone's head rang out, "Ow! Damn it, that hurt!"

"**Jiraiya-chan, you've been tryin' to summon us like clockwork!"**

"**It's been getting' in the way of my makin' dinner!"**

"…**I don't mind that much honestly."**

"**What was that?"**

"**Nothin' dear…"**

"Hi elders…"

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 2: Viridian Forest<span>

"Cataloging Pokémon…" Minato said to himself as he took a rest by a stream in the forest north of Viridian City, "Well it's not a D-rank mission."

In order to help himself earn money for his comrades that were also working to get supplies for an attempt at a return trip, Minato was offered a job by Professor Oak to help him study and investigate Pokémon in the world. He would pay Minato periodically for his efforts and he was free to take other work on the side. After learning of how fast Minato could travel distances he had Minato leave a Hiraishin marker right in the middle of his lab so that he could return anytime to debrief.

It was an optimal setup for a man that couldn't go too far from his lab for very long due to the responsibility of taking care of all of the Pokémon on his property. Oak would order supplies for the Konoha ninja stationed in Pallet Town in order for them to restock and prepare for another voyage.

Either way, it was a sweet deal for Minato to get him and his comrades home. For some reason he couldn't Hiraishin the whole ships back to Konoha, or himself. He had tried to do so after the storms got particularly nasty and had failed to do so, right before they started following that strange bird in the sky to safety. It couldn't have been a distance thing, his jutsu didn't have a range problem as he had already gone back to Pallet Town several times since entering the Viridian Forest.

But he'd have to do this the old fashioned way for the time being until he figured out what was wrong. And relying solely on his signature jutsu was not the way to solve any kind of problem. After all, he had to survive catastrophic situations back before he created Hiraishin no Jutsu, and he'd survive this one too, with everyone getting home in one piece.

"I wish I could summon and let Jiraiya-sensei know that we're all still alive." Minato muttered, looking at his palm. For some reason he couldn't summon either. Not that any backup could be sent, but a report would have been nice to send. With a sigh, he absently tossed a kunai into the brush only to hear it stir a bit.

"Kakuna."

A hissing voice uttered.

Choosing to investigate, Minato walked over and past the brush to find a large, gold colored pod with black eyes on it that his kunai had sunken into, "Another Pokémon? Sorry." He said, pulling the kunai out to find a small hole in it, "Damn… you're hurt aren't you?" A white light then began shining from the hole that started widening as a large bipedal bee started pulling itself out. Minato pulled out a field guide that had been given to him by Oak, "Oh, wait, you're a Kakuna… and now you're a Beedrill!"

As he continued to read about the Pokémon, last reading something about its bad temper, a stinger stabbed right through the book, getting Minato to look back up in alarm. Loud and angry buzzing followed as the Beedrill started trying to jab at Minato with its arm stingers quickly while the Konoha ninja did his best to dodge them. Backing against a tree, Minato contorted his body, narrowly avoiding another stab of needles that stabbed themselves in the trunk. In swift, almost instinctual counter-retaliation, Minato used his damaged book to repeatedly and rapidly slap the Beedrill fronthanded and backhanded until it fell backwards unconscious.

Putting his book away, Minato pulled out a small notepad and a pen and started writing, "…Causing a small tear in a Kakuna's cocoon irritates it to the point of evolution into Beedrill. Whether this is premature or not has yet to be determined, nor the effects of such a forced evolution." With that, Minato put his notebook away and looked down at the Beedrill with a frown, "Well there is a way I could study that." He pulled out a Poke Ball and threw it at the Beedrill, smiling to himself when he captured it, "I'll take care of you for now. I promise."

It also didn't hurt that the speed of the thing was impressive and that he dug its color scheme.

He tried to leave, but found that in the situation with the one Beedrill, many others had gathered around the empty Kakuna cocoon and were now glaring at him, buzzing angrily.

After a quick headcount, Minato realized he had a choice to make, both involving retreating. A fight with all of those Beedrill while he was sure he was fast enough to win would probably attract more, because he was in a forest and if they were anything like normal bees who knew how many there really were around. So he could either Hiraishin his way back to Pallet Town or Viridian City for an instant escape, or he could run and try to logically study what a chase from Beedrill entailed, because he had a feeling some other poor sucker would have to deal with something like this in the future.

With a sigh, Minato took off into the trees, coaxing them into attacking and chasing him, "I really hope somewhere down the line people appreciate that I did this…" He said to himself as he dodged the firing of Poison Stings from the body stingers of the furious Poison Bee Pokémon, "…If I live that long…"

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal).

Hogohei (Shellder)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Spinarak  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Constrict (Normal), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost).

Grimer  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Zubat  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying).

* * *

><p><strong>Yeah… nothing to say. I'm going to play Call of Duty and try to enjoy my last few days before going back to class.<strong>

**Later all.**

**Kenchi out.**


	4. Over the Moon

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. For those that bring this fact to my attention without necessary provocation or reason I have something for them that they can catch. They can catch a sight of my middle fingers turned upwards in their direction and in rare cases they can catch my boot up their ass. And no, you don't have to look for 150, 250, or however many. All you have to do is catch two of each.

**Chapter 4: Over the Moon**

* * *

><p>It had been a few days since leaving Pewter City and nothing significant had occurred since the departure of Naruto and Janine. Despite being a ninja, Janine didn't like running all day long the way Naruto could, but it was okay with him. Whenever she felt the need to relax and rest he found the time to train. He had promised Jiraiya that by the time the man returned he'd have the jutsu that his sensei taught him down and ready for use in combat.<p>

But once again, Naruto and Janine were back on the road at a more reserved pace than previously on this particular day, walking instead of running… mostly because there weren't really enough trees to hop from making travel easier than outright rushing down a mountainous path.

"Where do you live anyway?" Out in front of Naruto's face as he walked he was doing his best to read the map and get down their location. At his best guess they were still on Route 3 since they were heading east from Pewter City and they hadn't run into any damn mountain that they couldn't directly walk a path over or around yet, "Why can't I just take you right home and be done with it?"

"Because I don't want to go home yet." Janine remarked idly with a smile on her face, "I guarantee if you skip around and try to find my town and drop me off it'll take way longer than if you just do your own thing and let things run their course." She put a hand on his shoulder and took her map back from him, again tucking it back into her clothes, not ruffling them in the slightest as she did so, "Just go with the flow. I'm good company."

Pretty face or not, Naruto couldn't really trust a thief… especially a ninja thief that he had fought. He'd definitely be sleeping with Ranbouen out of his Poke Ball until it was determined that Janine was seriously just travelling with him for the sake of doing so and not with any ulterior motives. He'd been burned like that before.

Getting tired of the silence as Naruto kept figuring that they were still on the right path, Janine spoke up again, "You keep on disappearing early in the morning before sunrise. What do you do? Are you training?" She asked curiously. The prospect of figuring out however Naruto managed the weird techniques that he did was simply staggering for her.

"Yeah actually." Naruto admitted, much to her surprise. She figured that he'd keep being all frosty just like he had been for the last few days to her. She didn't know though that it just wasn't in Naruto's nature to hold a grudge over something like thievery, something that didn't really affect him in this case as well, "I'm still no good at the jutsu yet so don't expect me to show you right now what I'm up to."

Yes, Naruto was a strange guy, even to a ninja like herself. But he defeated her so quickly the other night, it was evident to her that Naruto could fight and defeat her Pokémon without his Growlithe at all. While her Pokémon weren't close to being as strong compared to others like her father's own, this was true she had to admit, it was still a lone human against a Pokémon. And that was incredibly impressive.

She'd love to have those two meet up and fight. Though her father's Pokémon would turn Naruto into mincemeat if he were to try and stand against them, but that was a very special case. Her father was an incredible trainer.

Eventually the two came to the foot of a mountain where Naruto came to a stop as he shielded his eyes to look toward the peak high above them, "*whistle* This is going to suck. I thought you said this was a shortcut to the next city."

"We're not climbing it." Janine told him as she came up directly behind him. After seeing the mountain, Naruto broke out in a run towards it and left her by a stream to play catch-up, "We're going through instead of over. I'm not getting all grimy for something that would be way harder than taking the other path."

"What other path?"

"The caves through-." Eventually Janine stood next to Naruto and could see why he figured climbing the mountain was the best course of action, "Someone blocked off the entrance to the caves! Damn it, no one climbs Mt. Moon!" Going up and over would take forever for someone like her.

Naruto simply started fishing through his backpack, looking for something to use while Janine started ranting that she didn't even bring any climbing equipment, that her Pokémon would get tired before they ever reached the top, and that she wasn't riding piggyback on Naruto just so he could cop a feel. That last comment got his eye to twitch though as he tried to ignore it.

And ignore it he did, as he eventually pulled out a ball of explosive tags all put together, a grin on his face, "Here. This'll clear it out." He said, confidently striding over to the tunnel that was blocked off with multiple boulders.

Janine watched with a curious gaze at the ball of papers with the markings on them. What in the world was that going to do? Naruto simply stuffed them into the best opening between the boulders that he could find, "Naruto… what are you doing?"

"I'm blowing these boulders up so we can get past." Naruto said, making sure the explosives were secure, "Rasengan won't punch through all of these without getting me crushed, and other people need to get past too, don't they? So I'm blowing them all up."

"Oh…" Janine deadpanned, finding it easier to just accept the strange things that came with Naruto. They would explain themselves in time. No need to stress about something that he didn't see as a big deal. But still… "Wait. Blowing them up? Naruto, blowing those up might cause a-."

It was too late however as Naruto had already set the explosive tags for detonation. Noticing that Janine was not turning to run with him, he snatched her up and ran away from the mouth of the cave before the blast occurred, "Run away from the tags damn it!"

BOOM!

Naruto skidded to a stop after the explosion shot chunks of rock all over the place and the sounds of stone falling and crashing told him that it had worked, "Whew. Now I've got to make another big ball of explosive tags, but that was just as cool as I thought it'd be!"

'Exploding paper?' Janine thought to herself, standing up under her own strength once Naruto stopped running away, "That was so cool…" She said in a little bit of awe before remembering what she had tried to tell him before, "Ugh… You could have caused a cave-in genius! You don't blow things up around the opening of a cave!"

"I just did." Naruto replied, almost strutting his way back to the knocked down and pulverized boulders that had once been blocking the way, "Come on, it's fine. How many other times am I going to have to clear a cave opening? Now let's-."

"Look out!"

This time it was Janine that protected Naruto. Diving at him and tackling him out of the way towards the inside of the cave as a boulder was thrown brazenly right at Naruto from a ledge on the mountain.

Sitting up from being knocked onto his back from Janine's save, Naruto rubbed the back of his head as she got off of him and looked up at the ledge to see another boulder being hoisted up by something, "What the hell is that thing? How can something that little lift a boulder like that?" Surprise aside, both Naruto and Janine darted away from the boulder that was thrown again as Naruto pulled his Pokédex out to analyze whatever Pokémon it was.

Because it was either a Pokémon or the strangest looking child he had ever seen in his life, and he'd seen a few.

It was a little humanoid looking creature that was mostly purple with brown bottoms and feet resembling short pants and shoes and with white lines on its torso and wrists resembling bandages. The top of its head had three spikes on it… and it was picking up another boulder to hurl at them as the Pokédex began stating what it was.

"_Tyrogue; the Scuffle Pokémon. It is always bursting with energy. To make itself stronger, it keeps on fighting even if it loses._ _To brush up on its fighting skills, it will challenge anyone. It has a very strong competitive spirit."_

"Why the hell is it chucking rocks at us?" Naruto shouted out as he dodged another thrown boulder. Sick of being hounded by the little Pokémon, Naruto began charging up the side of the cliff to reach the Tyrogue.

Janine just stood in place on the ground watching with her jaw dropped. No wires, no special attachments to his shoes. Naruto just ran right up a straight wall. He was seriously making her look bad and he didn't even know it.

"I'm sick of you!" Naruto yelled as he launched himself up onto the ledge and pointed accusingly at the Tyrogue, "Were you the one that blocked the cave off?" The Pokémon sneered at Naruto and then nodded stiffly, "Why?"

The little Pokémon only scoffed and put its hands up in a fighting stance before charging right at Naruto, flailing away with punches.

It was like fighting Konohamaru if Naruto had to be honest with himself. Mostly because the only thing he did was set his hand on Tyrogue's forehead, keeping it a safe distance away from him as it kept swinging away at nothing but air.

"This thing really wants to fight me?" Naruto asked as he continued to hold the small and combative Pokémon off.

Janine looked up and saw Naruto holding the Tyrogue off as it seemed to be getting angry at its diminutive size and inability to reach Naruto with its fists, "Naruto you're going to want to let go of that thing. If it was the one that threw all of those boulders down here then-."

The Tyrogue let out a grunt as it latched onto Naruto's arm. Its body started producing a white aura before it turned and threw Naruto over its shoulder off of the cliff, "Crap! This thing is strong!"

'It knows Strength!' Janine immediately pulled out one of her Pokeballs and threw it up at Naruto before he could hit the ground, "Help Naruto out Zubat! Don't let him go splat!" From the Poke Ball, her bat with its lack of eyesight flew up to Naruto with a cry and let Naruto grab onto its legs as it struggled to stay in flight with the suddenly added weight, "There you go!"

Naruto let go of Zubat once it got close to the ground and grinned thankfully at the Pokémon, "Thanks." Naruto said, giving a short salute before turning his attention back towards the Tyrogue that had picked up another boulder using Strength, "You're cutting the path off for other people! Stop throwing boulders down here you stupid runt!"

"Reh!" The Tyrogue just grunted at Naruto before choosing to ignore him again so that it could continue throwing boulders about to its heart's content.

A frown crossed Janine's face as she recalled her Zubat before it found itself in the path of the falling boulder. A Pokémon chucking huge rocks was not an opponent that she wanted her Zubat or Spinarak to go up against, "We can just leave it here. The path's open now, let's go."

"And let it block the way for someone else?" Naruto questioned, put off by allowing such a thing to happen since it wasn't really their problem, "How many people in Kanto actually carry explosives around with them? We've got to do something."

Janine puffed out her cheeks at Naruto's stubborn attitude and placed her hands on her hips, "Look, even if you beat it up and sent it away it would just be right back here later. All Tyrogues do day in and day out is train. Look at it. It doesn't care about us except for when we get in its way."

That was a problem though. Other people travelling this way wouldn't be as agile as they were, and they wouldn't see the careless little Pokémon throwing boulders until it was too late. It could kill quite a few people.

"You don't need a reason to do the right thing." Naruto said, stretching his legs out as if he were preparing for some brisk exercise, "If you can help someone that needs it you should just do it. That's what I think anyway." With that he placed his fingers into his mouth and let out a sharp whistle, "Oi! Tyrogue! Beating up boulders is nice, but how about you try it on someone that'll fight back?"

A tick mark appeared on the Tyrogue's head as it glared down at Naruto and took that as a challenge. It jumped down to the ground and crossed its arms over its chest, trying to look as intimidating as possible despite barely standing two and a half feet off of the ground.

'Which Pokémon is he going to use?' Janine wondered. Naruto still only had his Growlithe and his Shellder, but depending on whichever one he used that would tell her what kind of person he really was since both of those Pokémon were polar opposites in every way. And then Naruto set himself in his own fighting stance, 'What? He's going to fight it by himself?'

That didn't tell her anything, and would only serve to confuse her further on just what made Uzumaki Naruto tick.

"Bring it on shorty!" Naruto beckoned brazenly, getting the Tyrogue to growl and charge right at him. By now he had seen enough of them to where Naruto knew a Tackle when he saw one and just sidestepped it before pushing Tyrogue on its back with his foot to knock it to the ground, "Different than throwing rocks isn't it?" He taunted.

Tyrogue pulled its face out of the dirt and jumped back up to rush at Naruto again, not deterred by his bigger size or apparent fighting ability.

Instead of being fully thrown into the fight, Naruto found himself grinning at the Tyrogue as it tried to punch and kick at Naruto. Its moves were very clumsy though despite the fact that it was giving its all to hit him.

Trying to trade hand-to-hand with Naruto after he had spent the last two months straight getting kicked around on the deck of a swaying ship by Jiraiya was not wise for a baby Pokémon, even one that was a fighting type.

Eventually the Tyrogue backed off and stomped its foot angrily on the ground, "Rah… rah!" It pointed at the ground and drew a line with its foot as if it were daring Naruto to take the initiative and make the first move this time instead of just waiting and defending.

Naruto just shrugged and ran zig-zags at Tyrogue before slipping right past the line and punching through the little Pokémon's guard, getting it to stumble back. It was tough to not be knocked off of its feet, but Naruto was taking that challenge to attack seriously and was looking to make Tyrogue realize that whether attacking or defending there was nothing it could do to beat Naruto.

As this continued on, Janine had to keep reminding herself that Naruto wasn't a normal person or ninja for that matter, and that even she could have beaten the Tyrogue with her own hands and feet if she had to. But fighting a fighting Pokémon head-up was just absurd.

XxX

(With Jiraiya – Mount Myoboku)

Nursing the bumps on his head and the ringing in his ears from Shima's scolding about knowing when to take a hint when it came to the summoning, Jiraiya walked along with the two diminutive and elderly toads through their home environment.

Jiraiya dealt with this for the most part until they reached an area of the mountain where the two toads had been leading him since reverse summoning him to the mountain. They themselves didn't know the answer to his question, saying that it was before their time.

Before their time? They were both 800 years old give or take.

After stating such and laughing at it… and nursing more bumps from Shima… he was reverse summoned to Mt. Myoboku to speak to the only person in the world that could possibly give Jiraiya his answers.

And there he stood before him. A toad the size of boss summon, rusty red in color, covered in wrinkles from age with a chain of beads around his neck as he sat in a special throne dictating his important position in the culture of the toads.

Jiraiya immediately bowed to the toad upon standing in front of him, "Great Toad Sage. I've been summoned to the mountain in order to ask you a question. If you would be willing to grant me the time to do so of course." He showed his respect to the oldest of the toads, the most revered creatures on the mountain. No joking around at a time like this, "I have Naruto back by himself somewhere safe, but I'll need to get back as soon as I can with some news."

The large old toad simply kept his eyes closed as he smiled widely in a kind manner, looking down on the favorite summoner of his clan for decades, **"Jiraiya… I'm quite certain that whatever you request of me… it is worth the time spent to answer it. So by all means… ask away."** He then smacked his lips and lifted a webbed finger before Jiraiya could open his mouth, **"But I have to ask first… who is this Naruto that you speak of?"**

Jiraiya's eye twitched as he stood back up on his feet, "Naruto… the newest summoner of the toads. You have to know about him. Don't you?"

"**Ahh, Naruto. Of course I do. I remember him now."**

'No you don't.' Jiraiya thought to himself deciding to just get down to business. He had waited for quite some time and travelled a long way just to be able to summon. He really wished to know just why, "We'll save that for later. My true question. Honorable Great Toad Sage, I need you to tell me why it is that neither Naruto nor myself, recognized holders of the toad contract, cannot summon any of your clan overseas in the land of Kanto."

A serious look came over the massive, elderly toad's closed eye face as he listened to Jiraiya's question. They simply stayed still, the both of them as Jiraiya waited patiently. But eventually the minutes dragged on, much to Jiraiya's confusion.

"**Zzzzz…"**

Jiraiya palmed his face as the head of the Great Toad Sage began to lean forward, showing that he had nodded off in the middle of the conversation.

This was going to take longer than he thought.

XxX

(Kanto – Foot of Mt. Moon – Two Hours Later)

The fight between Naruto and Tyrogue was still going on even though it was starting to look more like a good-natured spar at this point. Neither Naruto nor Tyrogue looked winded, and Tyrogue had stopped trying to bore a hole through Naruto with its eyes out of hate.

Was it… enjoying the fight?

Either way, Janine had taken a seat a long time ago on the ground to watch the fight. And then it started dragging on into a never-ending encounter of the bullheaded kind.

"You fight like me little guy!" Naruto exclaimed, honestly seeing a lot of himself in Tyrogue as he continued to watch it come barreling at him like a brawler trying to hit him any way it could. Instead of just knocking Tyrogue out cold, Naruto had found it too much fun to stop letting the Pokémon keep coming at him, giving it little jabs and trips when he saw it make a mistake.

"Naruto… we've got to go." Janine said with a deadpan look on her face as she pointed at the position of the sun and the position in the sky that let her know it was getting to be kind of late in the afternoon, "What, are we going to camp outside at the foot of Mt. Moon, because I'm not sleeping in that cave with all of the Zubats."

Hearing his new traveling companion's concerns, Naruto jumped back out of the fray with Tyrogue and stopped to look at Janine, rubbing the back of his neck as he took a look at how the countryside seemed to begin being bathed in an orange glow. She had a point. Sleeping in a cave wasn't the best idea with wild bat Pokémon roaming about that could potentially try to drain their blood in their sleep.

"Okay." He eventually conceded. He walked back over to Janine and helped her up to her feet before yawning, "It is getting kind of late. I guess we should get moving if we want to get through the mountain before it gets too dark." As Janine dusted off the stubborn dirt from her skirt after having been seated for so long, Naruto turned back to the Tyrogue, "I've got to go now. But _you've_ got to stop chucking boulders all over the place. You can train, but when your training hurts people you shouldn't be doing it."

After two hours of trying to beat Naruto up, Tyrogue was well aware of the fact that Naruto was the superior combatant. Even though it didn't like it, Naruto was for all intents and purposes its senpai in physical combat, thus a stiff nod came from the little Pokémon. Its jaw then dropped when it saw Naruto and Janine begin to walk away.

"Ow!" Naruto yelled as a small stone bounced off of the back of his head. He turned around to see that Tyrogue had been the perpetrator that had tossed the stone. He saw a defiant look in its eyes and knew what it wanted, giving it a stiff nod before turning back around, "One sec Janine. I've got to finish this."

Without saying anything, Janine just nodded. She knew more than enough about fighting Pokémon to realize that they saw combat as a serious matter. As far as the Tyrogue was concerned, Naruto never finished their fight and it would be offended if he didn't do so.

Naruto set himself back in his stance of preparation as Tyrogue charged at him, putting all it had in one move to knock Naruto flat or go down swinging.

However it didn't expect the response of the smirking Naruto as a quick few motions of the hands put a Poke Ball in Naruto's hand that he then chucked right at Tyrogue's head. The orb bounced off of the little creature's head, turning it into red energy and trapping it within. There was barely a struggle at all before the noise went up to let Naruto know that his capture had been successful.

With a shrug, Naruto picked the Poke Ball up and dusted it off, "Yeah, you're not going to like that when I let you back out later, but whatever." He snickered, "Now at least you can fight me and try to beat me as much as you want later, eh Fukigenko (Grumpy Child)?" Hey, it was an angry little Pokémon and he would name it accordingly.

"It's going to try and kick your ass later when it gets a chance." Janine said, shaking her head despite the fact that she was actually amused by the end of the little scuffle. It still didn't have to take two hours… but maybe that's why it was so easy to catch; because two straight hours of fighting exhausted the Tyrogue. Speaking of exhaustion, "Aren't you tired?"

Naruto pocketed the Poke Ball as the two of them got moving again towards the mouth of the Mt. Moon cave, "Well, a little bit. But I didn't even use any chakra so it's no big deal. I'm good."

Him and that chakra of his again. Whatever.

"Chakra…" Janine said to herself, testing the word in her mouth as the echo of her words started reverberating off of the walls of the cave, "You keep using that word. I'm pretty sure it's whatever lets you do all of that weird stuff." She told herself that she would stop being amazed by the things that Naruto could do in case there was anything else he was keeping under wraps, "Come on. And stay close or we'll get separated."

An offended scoff came from Naruto as he walked slightly behind Janine with his hands behind his neck and his eyes closed, "Oh whatever. How can we get separated? You're right here."

XxX

(Forty-Five Minutes Later – Interior of Mt. Moon)

"Did I seriously lose him? I said to stay close!" Janine yelled to herself inside the depths of the cavern. The decibels of her loud shout shaking the rocks and scaring some of the more timid Pokémon away from her as she came just short of choosing to throw a temper-tantrum.

She was not going to freak out. She was a ninja, a calm, cool, collected warrior of the shadows; trained by the greatest on the continent with her skills having been acutely honed like the iron of a fine blade in a blacksmith's fires.

But seriously, Uzumaki Naruto was a fucking headache and a half!

"You are _not_ ditching me in this cave you prick! Do you hear me?" She shouted again before sighing deeply and massaging her temple. He didn't run out on her. Even after a few days she knew that he wasn't that kind of guy. The same person that would go out of his way to pick a fight with a Pokémon because it was blocking a path for others wouldn't just sneak away without a word, ninja or not.

So she'd have to find him. But why the hell did he have to get lost in a freaking cave?

"Did you hear that voice?"

"It was some girl, but didn't we have the only way into Mt. Moon covered on the other side?"

"The bitch must have been hiding."

Upon hearing unfamiliar voices that sounded none too friendly, Janine called out her Spinarak and held it in her arms, gesturing her head up to prompt the little spider to use String Shot to pull them both up to the ceiling and out of the open before the loud footsteps coming from around a large rock outcropping made their way to where she was standing.

Two young men wearing black boots, black turtlenecks, black pants and a utility-looking belt as well as a young woman wearing black knee-high boots, a black skirt, and a black turtleneck ran out around the area to investigate. All of them were wearing black caps and on the front of their shirts they had large red 'R's emblazoned upon them.

From her place holding onto strands of her Spinarak's webbing on the ceiling, Janine narrowed her eyes and almost let off an audible scoff of either annoyance or disgust, 'Team Rocket. Really? What are these idiots doing here?' She looked at Spinarak and gestured her head down before letting go and falling, trusting her Pokémon to catch her from her fall.

Spinarak's webbing did just that, tying around its master's ankles as Janine hovered above one of the Team Rocket members that had separated from the other two somewhat to search a certain area. With her fall stopped so that she hovered directly above the person's head, Janine grabbed onto the person and covered their mouth as she was retracted back up to the ceiling with not a sound being made.

This process was repeated until all three Team Rocket members were stuck to the ceiling with webs keeping them stuck and silent, mouths bound.

Janine dropped to the ground gracefully with Spinarak on her back. She recalled her Pokémon back to its Poke Ball and spared a glance up at the ceiling, "Whatever these guys are doing here, I know there are more." There always were, "Great… so now I've got to find Naruto." She said, tossing another Poke Ball that housed her Zubat which she was going to use for reconnaissance.

After all, who would notice a single Zubat flying about in a cave where there were tons of them?

This was more trouble than it was worth. The other ninja of her ilk had been having troubles with this group in the past. They were the most prevalent of the criminal underworld in Kanto and if they were roosting in Mt. Moon then it was clear that there was a dilemma afoot.

XxX

(With Naruto – Elsewhere in Mt. Moon)

"You bastards…" Naruto muttered to himself, in full defensive mode, but not making a single move. Ranbouen was out and by his side, holding still as well as he growled angrily.

In front of them were around a dozen beaten-up, burned Team Rocket members, but still further ahead were multiple normal folks, travelers and trainers of all sorts that had been passing through, all tied up and captured. This had been what had started Naruto's outright buttkicking of Team Rocket which had started out stealthily, but turned into an outright dogfight… and that wasn't just a pun for his inclusion of Ranbouen.

How had all of this occurred?

He had gotten separated from Janine when he broke off to take a quick leak and didn't want to hear anything from her (If Janine was anything like Sakura was he didn't want to hear her mouth over something that was a natural bodily function), but this was not smart because he then lost her. He had more fluids than he thought and when he went back to find her she was gone.

Stupid cave.

And in the middle of his search for his lost ninja companion he had come across these jerks in black uniforms. Not knowing they were bad guys, he stepped out and prepared to ask them if they had seen Janine, this led to them asking why he wasn't tied up like the others and Naruto preemptively knocked them out, having never associated a question like that with anything good coming in the future.

Eventually it led to Naruto using Ranbouen to find a corridor of the cave where over twenty people were kept captive, with multiple Team Rocket members watching over them. He took out as many as he could, but as the numbers dwindled they eventually caught on and called him out.

Still no problem. Naruto proceeded to beat the crap out of them before they could even call their Pokémon out, until the captured people were threatened by those Team Rocket members remaining.

"Don't do anything stupid kid. You don't want Sandshrew's claws to nick an artery here do you?" One of the thugs said as his Pokémon, a yellow, mouse-looking Pokémon with a tough, earthen hide and small sharp claws stood next to a group of tied up hostages, holding said claws to the neck of one of the captives.

Naruto grit his teeth and held still, locking eyes with the young man that seemed to be around his age and the other terrified people tied up along with him, "Don't worry. I'll figure out some way to get you all out of this."

The Team Rocket members just laughed at Naruto's declaration, "A runt like you? Yeah, you might be some kind of freak to be able to take out so many of us, but junior we're top of the line. No matter how many of us you beat there are always going to be more."

And with that, many of the other Team Rocket members released their Pokémon, mostly Rattata and Zubat, but with several of them all moving and flying towards Naruto it wasn't going to matter what they were in just a moment.

"Why are you even doing this?" Naruto asked. He wasn't about to just sit back and let them kill him either if that was their aim. He just needed an opening.

"It's our orders." One of the Team Rocket members said, "To take control of Mt. Moon long enough to locate a sufficient supply of Moon Stones and fossils. Capture any trainer fool enough to intrude on the operation and relieve them of their Pokémon. And use whatever force required to make the mission a success."

So what, they were bandits or something? Well it was a good enough choke point for an ambush where people would be cut off from anyone missing them, so at least they had tactics. Well, not these guys, but whoever was heading this whole thing up.

"So just die like a good boy."

Before any of the Pokémon could act and attack Naruto and Ranbouen, an ear-splitting Supersonic was let loose that brought the Team Rocket members to their knees and even affected their Pokémon.

Taking this move as a gift from Kami, Naruto ran forward with a clone created instantly, "Ranbouen, you know what to do!" He shouted as he and his clone formed a Rasengan between the two of them. Ranbouen fired an ember at the Rasengan, engulfing it in orange flames as the two Narutos continued towards their target Team Rocket member, the one that had been holding the people hostage with his Sandshrew until it became confused.

"Katon: Rasengan (Fire Release: Spiraling Sphere)!"

Naruto and… Naruto, both slammed the Rasengan into the immediate threat, the Sandshrew, forcing a blast to occur that engulfed its body in flames onto contact as it went flying backwards. In a method of a defense mechanism it curled into a ball, a flaming ball. That flaming ball flew right into the chest of the Team Rocket hostage taker and knocked them back into the far wall, with the original force of being propelled by Naruto's jutsu slamming into the man like a cannonball.

There wasn't time to care about how successful his newly worked out jutsu was, or how awesome it looked after painstakingly practicing it with Ranbouen since he had captured the Puppy Pokémon, suffering innumerous burns and losing clone after clone in the process of working it out.

There were people that needed help, and Naruto pulled out a kunai to begin cutting folks free.

"Zubat, Air Cutter!"

Janine's Zubat appeared from its hiding place at the top of the cave where it had unleashed its previous attack and let loose several blue blades of wind from its wings, cutting down many of the confused Pokémon that had been suffering from Supersonic and fighting amongst themselves.

"You're so lucky." Janine said brightly, dropping smoke bomb to conceal her fall to the ground from her hiding place. The Team Rocket members with defeated Pokémon heard her voice inside of the smoke and rushed in to dogpile on her only for the smoke to fade and reveal that she had dropped a wooden scarecrow in her place for the lot of them to crash into. She then dropped into view, hopping on the heads of the grunts to defeat them before they finished getting back up, "Aren't you so glad we're friends Naruto?"

Ranbouen sat on his haunches, panting happily while Naruto freed the rest of the people with his kunai now that they had beaten every Team Rocket member in the cave. He just grunted as he finished cutting the last people loose, letting a grin slide over his face as he spun the blade around his finger by the ring.

As everyone ran off to a large sack filled with their Poke Balls, Janine walked over to the beaten Team Rocket member and his badly burned Sandshrew. Even the man himself was bleeding from the mouth and his shirt had been burned through by his formerly flaming Pokémon.

"So is this the 'jutsu' you've been working on?" Janine asked as she stood back up and watched Naruto tie up the Team Rocket members all together.

Naruto shook his head as he tightened his bonds on the enemy, dusting his hands off for a job well done afterwards, "Nope. This is something else I came up with after I caught Ranbouen. Cool huh? It's something new I added to one of my other attacks in secret. I didn't want Ero-sennin freaking out over me messing with fire on the ship." Naruto looked down at his hand that had suffered a few burns after the explosion that happened on contact, but it was fine. He'd bandage it and be fine by tomorrow afternoon, "So who are these guys?"

"Team Rocket." Explained Janine as her Zubat landed on her shoulder. She spared one of the tied up Rocket grunts a kick to the leg that elicited a grunt from him, "They steal Pokémon, technology… really anything they think is useful to their goals. A bunch of dishonorable jackasses." She noticed Naruto giving her a dry look and laughed a bit before further deliberating, "I mean, I get paid to steal things from time to time too but at least I'm charming about it."

Ignoring that in exchange for walking on ahead, Naruto let out a noise of acknowledgment, "So what are their goals?" If she said something like 'to capture jinchuuriki' he was going to hightail it back to Pallet Town and try to leave. He had enough of that to worry about back at home, he didn't need it there too.

"No idea… the police force in this country can't stop them really. They don't know enough about their operations." Seemingly not caring about this fact she had just mentioned to Naruto, with a small grunt Janine picked up a sack that Naruto hadn't seen previously until the rustling of it and its clicking contents inside got his attention, "We're going to take these and sell these and finally make some money."

Raising an eyebrow in confusion and helping the kunoichi set down the rather heavy sack on her back, Naruto's eyes widened at the sheer amount of black shiny stones inside, "What are these supposed to be?"

"Moon Stones. They make certain Pokémon evolve." Naruto had to take a step back from the gleam of dollar signs in her eyes as she picked up a stone and rubbed it against her cheek, "Oh… selling just one of these gets us 1050 yen. There's got to be like fifty or more of these things in here. This is a pretty good payday." She then remembered that Naruto told her not to steal and sighed, "But I guess we have to put these back don't we?"

A nod did not come from Naruto as she expected. Instead he picked the sack up himself and slung it over his shoulder, "Looting isn't the same thing as stealing. We won this stuff."

Naruto wasn't as dumb as he normally seemed about quite a few matters. He understood the value of money and realized that his pay of 3000 yen from his work at the museum and his pay of 1400 yen from beating Brock was not a lot of money after he bought goods from Pewter City's store for his Pokémon.

"Right!" Janine chirped brightly at the idea of having some money in her pocket for the first time since she set out from home to take the ill-fated mission of her client in Viridian City, "As long as we steal from criminals it's not a bad thing. And after the good deeds we did today we deserve a good reward don't we? A fifty-fifty split between partners."

For some reason her grin at finally having some loot put a grin on Naruto's face too. The trainers and other travelers had all gotten their respective Poke Balls and had hightailed it out of the vicinity leaving them as the only conscious people still there as Janine led them once more on the way out towards Cerulean City with a practiced kind of calm.

Hey, she even offered to split the money they'd get with him. If it were Jiraiya the man probably would have tried to confiscate the lot of stones, sell them in the next town, tell Naruto he was going to keep the money for the both of them, and then spend it on pleasurable company and alcohol… and then he'd try to pilfer Naruto's wallet for some extra funds.

Now Naruto had not seen any houses of ill repute since arriving in Kanto, but that didn't mean that there weren't any, it was simply that he hadn't looked. What the hell kind of use would a kid like him have for something like that, especially a broke kid like him? And if there were he was quite certain that Jiraiya would have made like a bloodhound and would have sniffed them out in a heartbeat.

Where the hell was he anyway?

XxX

(With Jiraiya – Mt. Myoboku)

A snoozing Jiraiya, lying down on the ground at the foot of the Great Toad Sage's throne let out a sneeze and shivered before sniffling without stirring from his slumber. He kicked around like a dreaming puppy momentarily and mumbled, "Mmm… no Tsunade-hime, I've got all the time in the world for you. *gasp* Shizune too? Of course. There's more than enough Jiraiya to go around don't you know?"

The two elder toads Shima and Fukasaku had already gone to their home for the night while Jiraiya had chosen to stubbornly wait out the Great Toad Sage's nap. He valiantly stayed awake deep into the night, but the crushing boredom eventually won out and put him straight to sleep.

Suddenly the Great Toad Sage's eyes popped open momentarily before returning to their normal closed state and he started to make a pondering noise of thought as if he hadn't fallen asleep randomly for several hours while in the middle of a conversation, **"The reason our clan is unable to respond to a summon whilst in the land of Kanto…"** He said before looking down and noticing that Jiraiya was asleep, **"Oh. *laughs* Well, it is a matter that can wait until when you wake up…"** Letting out a yawn his head sank back down into a pre-slumbering state, **"…Myself as well."**

From that point the only sounds that could be heard in the area until morning were the sounds of the many insects that populated the toad paradise mountain and the sound of both Jiraiya and the Great Toad Sage snoring in stereo.

XxX

(The Next Day – Kanto – Mt. Moon)

The Team Rocket members were kept trapped within the cave all tied together and suffering from various bumps and bruises until their savior came the next morning. Too bad they were more afraid of their savior than the person that put them there in the first place.

"You're telling me that two children disrupted the site and defeated all of you…" There was an underlying threat in the calm voice of the smartly dressed Team Rocket Boss that all of the previously beaten Team Rocket members quivered at, "Are you really this inept? Was I that wrong to refrain from sending an admin to keep an eye on this operation that the lot of you apparently couldn't handle?"

One of the braver members that endeavored to save his and his comrades' respective skins spoke up, "Boss, you don't understand. There was this one kid, he was like some kind of monster or something. He didn't even need his Pokémon! He beat up most of us before we even got out Poke Balls out to stop him, and he had some girl as backup that we never even saw until it was over!"

"Yeah! I swear I saw that kid jump fifteen feet in the air!"

Hearing this put a curious expression on the face of Giovanni who walked over to the first man to speak and stared into his eyes intently, "This boy you speak of. You can describe him to me can't you?" It couldn't just be a coincidence. How many kids in Kanto were there that had a ten-plus foot vertical leap?

"Y-Yeah. Orange clothes, blonde hair, blue eyes, a-and weird marks on his cheeks."

Giovanni's eyes widened before he simply started laughing, walking away from the very confused and still quite scared Team Rocket members. He laughed all the way back to his sleek black car, and even when he got inside he still laughed as he used the car phone to dial a number, finally letting his mirth die down, "Ah, and he just went through Mt. Moon. That means he's heading towards Cerulean City." He let the phone's dial tone go for a few seconds until he got a response on the other line, "Yes. There's a potential recruit coming your way. If he accepts reward him greatly. If he refuses… well I'll let you use your imagination on how to solve that."

With that, the short conversation ended.

A person like this boy he had run across in Viridian City. Even if he were a bust in the talent department he could still be used as a grunt like the other cannon fodder, and if he were a hot prospect he could be a very useful admin in Team Rocket.

"And even if he refuses and gets past the recruiter… he won't be trouble for much longer afterwards. The boy will run into Lt. Surge sooner or later and that will be the end of that." Giovanni said to himself before choosing to address his driver, "Return to base. There's still much work to be done." He ordered as the car pulled off.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 3: Mt. Moon<span>

Minato clawed his way over the top of a cliff with a large grunt of exertion. While he was there he might as well try to get some training in, and he was always told that he could stand to work on his physical abilities. In the previous words of his current girlfriend back in Konoha, even though he was a powerful ninja and faster than pretty much anyone alive he was also 'girly' and 'flaky' (Kami he missed Kushina), thus he chose to forego climbing with chakra, instead using his muscles to do the work for him.

Rolling onto his back as he reached the top of the mountain, Minato wiped the sweat from his face and sat up to look in the dark night sky at the hooting Pokémon that had been flying around him throughout the entire climb.

A round-bodied brown owl with stubby wings, a beige underbelly, large red eyes, eyelash markings around the eyes, and black arrow crests on the top of its head flew around a bit more before landing on Minato's shoulder, perching itself with only one leg where he rubbed the top of its head with a smile, "Hah… that was one hell of a workout. Not for you though eh Hoothoot?"

The owl let out a few more happy cries as Minato had just captured that Pokémon the night after he left Pewter City. He found that his Beedrill didn't exactly have the advantage despite its imposing appearance and almost lost the battle due to Hoothoot's unique attack skills until he ended it himself with a well-timed toss of a Poke Ball.

But that was all in the past.

Minato stood up and started walking along the mountaintop until he came across a very, very, very large stone three times his size that was pitch black and had some kind of power radiating through it. Hoothoot flew off of his shoulder and perched onto the stone while Minato placed his hand against it and shut his eyes to feel the strange energy flowing through it, 'It's like chakra… but it definitely isn't. It doesn't even feel like it's from this world.'

Hoothoot watched Minato curiously as he let out a sigh and leaned against the gigantic Moon Stone after failing to try and analyze what it was. From what the little owl Pokémon had seen, Minato was quite brave and was rather wise for a human, especially when he said that he didn't know much of anything about Pokémon or Kanto in general.

So it had to wonder why Minato was leaning against a stone that was not secure to try and get a quick nap to curb his exhaustion. Oh well. Hoothoot simply flew off of the stone the second it felt its weight shift, and it wasn't wrong as it only took a few moments more for the Moon Stone to dislodge itself from where it had been sitting.

Minato felt the stone begin to fall and jumped away from it only for his jaw to drop as he saw it roll away from him down the mountain, bouncing, crashing, and smashing into multiple peaks and breaking off chunks on its way down out of his sight. Even when he couldn't see it he could hear it hitting things until it stopped with a mighty sounding crash through trees at the bottom that echoed even up to where he had climbed.

A mortified look was pasted on the travelling Konoha shinobi's face as he looked at the Hoothoot that had landed back on his shoulder, "Uh… I think that's as good a sign as any to keep moving to the next town. I'm wide awake after that."

"Hoo hoooo!"

With a nod, Minato started descending the mountain towards the other side to try and put as much distance and blame away from himself and that fallen boulder of doom that he could. For Kami's sake he could have possibly killed somebody with that thing.

This would mark the beginning of a small period of time that denizens of Pewter City and Cerulean City would deem the most dangerous/profitable time in the history of their cities. The Moon Stone that Minato knocked down from the summit of Mt. Moon that chipped off all over on the way down resulted in the allowance of many evolutions of Clefairy, Jigglypuff, Nidorino, and Nidorina in the area into their strongest states.

Trainers came from all over to catch the already pre-evolved Clefable and Wigglytuff Pokémon and to keep the Nidokings and Nidoqueens from rampaging all over the towns with their newfound strength.

When this phenomenon would be mentioned by Professor Oak with quite a bit of amazement upon his next Hiraishin back to the man's lab for a progress report some time later, Minato would only be able to blush and offer a heartfelt, "My bad."

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal).

Hogohei (Shellder)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water).

Fukigenko (Tyrogue)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal)

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Spinarak  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Constrict (Normal), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost).

Grimer  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Zubat  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying).

* * *

><p><strong>Hello world. It's your faceless purveyor of stories that are not originally based off of his own merit and are the brainchildren of people far more talented and ambitious than me that know money-making ideas when they have them (yes, this includes Kishimoto).<strong>

**Alright, now that this is done I've got to go cash my friggin check and buy a fucking CF memory card for my university projects… I hate spending money on things I don't want otherwise. I'll probably be the angriest parent of all time if I have kids because babies are like… way more expensive on a regular basis.**

**But by then I'll hopefully have money and a stable career to raise children in a loving and caring environment and make the next generation of Kenchi for the entire world to enjoy. And then me and my children will take over the entire world for Kenchi to rule over forever more.**

…**And you'll enjoy it… just like I hope you enjoyed this.**

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	5. It's All About the Green

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. Is it wrong of me that I still know where my gigantic binder is with all of my Pokémon Cards kept safe for storage purposes?

Damn it, one day that holographic Alakazam is going to be worth a shit-ton of money! I know it will!

**Chapter 5: It's All About the Green**

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><p>"This isn't working." Naruto said as he sat down on the ledge of a bridge that spanned over one of the many waterways in Cerulean City. After their arrival earlier that morning, Naruto had gone out with Janine to sell the large amount of Moon Stones they had obtained from Team Rocket during the fight inside of Mt. Moon, "Why don't we just go back and take the guy's offer? It's still enough money for the two of us to make it for a while."<p>

The act of selling the stones to the most prominent merchant they could find in town did not go as Janine had hoped it would have gone.

"No way. I'm not getting low-balled by some jerk store owner that thinks he's the only game in town." The rather angry Pokémon wielding kunoichi replied, "I know how much a Moon Stone is worth at market price and he thinks he's going to get one over on me by hiking the price down." It just made her so mad, "'You can try to take those stones somewhere else little missy, but you won't find anyone else around here to pay you what those things are worth.'" She said, mocking the man's voice.

Trying to pay her less than 900 yen per stone when aftermarket price started traditionally at 1050? What a crook. If that were the case she would rather take the goods somewhere farther away where Moon Stones were harder to come by. Then they would make far more than even 1050 per stone. This guy obviously didn't feel like their merchandise was worth even standard price because of his proximity to Mt. Moon, well he'd wind up paying for that.

With a disgruntled sigh, Janine realized that she was getting all bent out of shape over something that was easy to remedy. She didn't want to haul around a sack of Moon Stones for any longer than she had to. Money was much easier to carry. This was supposed to be a simple payday, "Okay. Let me go see if I can get something out of one more contact. You go… do something. I'll find you later. Keep the stones close."

"Okay." Naruto agreed, getting up from his seat on the bridge ledge, "I'll just go to that field west of town that we went past to train. I can't really do what I want anywhere in Cerulean City or people would freak out."

The two shinobi of different backgrounds split up for their own reasons; Janine to get the money that she felt she was so desperately afforded and had coming to her since her botched job in Pewter City, Naruto to go and train a bit while he waited for his temporary companion to finish her bit of business when it came to offloading those stones.

XxX

(A Little While Later – Just Outside of Cerulean City – Route 4)

Standing in an open field next to a river where Naruto had released all of his Pokémon for a little outside time. After clearing the area of any ornery Spearow, Rattata, and even one jerk of a pig-monkey hybrid Pokémon that tried to beat up his Tyrogue Fukigenko, Naruto decided to get back to training himself in the new jutsu that Jiraiya had set him down the path on.

Naruto was doing his best to internally mould his chakra as the directions to the jutsu indicated he would have to in order to execute his jutsu while his bored Pokémon sat off to the side with Ranbouen trying to sleep by the sack of Moon Stones as Hogohei was busy in the water and Fukigenko did sit-ups.

His internal strain came to an end as he stopped struggling and let out a large sigh and looked at the palms of his hands, "This isn't working, but Ero-sennin said I could do this jutsu. He said it was my right to learn it." Still, it just wasn't working for him, "Am I missing something? He said I had the proper chakra for the jutsu… he said to visualize my chakra as chains… and to just let it fly from my body. I don't get it."

Even though it was hard to grasp, Jiraiya had left Naruto notes on it that were not in his writing and swore to him that it was a versatile jutsu that no one but him could pull off. He understood it… sort of, but trying to put it into practice was damned difficult. He had been working on the jutsu at Jiraiya's behest during the back end of their voyage to Kanto, for over two weeks prior to landing at Cinnabar Island, and he didn't have it yet.

Apparently Rasengan was the pinnacle of shape transformation without the use of hand-seals and he could do that, so this would be him shaping chains without hand-seals? Jiraiya and the notes hadn't given him any. That sounded hard too, but at least it was one definite shape unlike the constantly spinning and moving Rasengan. He needed a clone to control his chakra that well for that to work for him so what would it take for-?

"Fuck! I'm stupid!" Naruto suddenly exclaimed at the top of his lungs, managing to wake up the slumbering Ranbouen and disturb Fukigenko's sit-ups. Even Hogohei stopped frolicking in the water and stared at his trainer after his outburst, "Oh. Sorry guys. My bad." He then started laughing and eventually started cackling wildly, "But I've finally got the answer, dattebayo! I'm awesome!"

Getting sick of his very loud trainer, Fukigenko growled and ran right at Naruto before tackling him to the ground where they began wrestling so that he would shut up. Ranbouen started barking and soon found himself included in the fracas while Hogohei decided to just continue swimming, diving underwater as the Shellder felt that it was not involved whatsoever.

As the two Pokémon and single human continued to scuffle aimlessly, more for fun than anything else eventually, they barely noticed the strains of a beautiful lullaby that was slowly getting more prominent towards their senses of hearing.

Ranbouen was the one to pick it up enough to notice first due to his hearing and started sniffing the air to locate the source of the song. It got the necessary direction down, but before anything could be done the Growlithe fell asleep in the middle of the field, leaving Naruto and Fukigenko to continue fighting it out unaware.

Naruto had the little fighting Pokémon in a headlock while the Tyrogue was pulling on the side of his mouth to get Naruto to let go. The two noticed that something was off as they both started to feel drowsy despite not being tired and drifted off before their suspicions could supply anything concrete as to what was happening.

It didn't take too much longer for a round, pink Pokémon with large eyes, cat like ears, small arms and legs, and a curly tuft of hair on the front of its head to wander through its hiding place in the tall grass and come out in the open, looking around at the two sleeping Pokémon before it and the sleeping blonde boy that was with him.

At that point the creature called out and from a further away hiding place, a girl emerged with long brown hair, a sleeveless black dress that was cut around her knees, white gloves on her hands, and black shoes.

The girl walked over, carefully trying to keep from waking up any of the Pokémon. That Growlithe almost blew her plan entirely, "Good job Puriri." The girl whispered to the little pink Pokémon as she made her way over the sack that had gotten her attention, the reason she had chosen to steal from this strange kid in the first place. He had been standing in that field doing nothing for almost two hours before an opening presented itself for her Jigglypuff to use Sing.

But it was time well spent as upon opening the sack the girl's eyes lit up, "Oh man… look at all of these Moon Stones." She pocketed two for herself and closed the sack back up before picking it up and creeping away, "Thanks for the haul. Sweet dreams sweetheart." She remarked as she slipped away with her Jigglypuff.

XxX

(Sometime Later)

She was trying her absolute hardest not to kill him. Not Naruto. She wouldn't kill Naruto. She wouldn't kill the weird kid that stopped her plans to rob the museum in Pewter City. Yes, he might have kept her from getting the largest payday of her young life from the client in Viridian City, but she still had one bit of Old Amber still in Naruto's supply pack that he thought was useless that she planned to sell for a bit of cash later.

But he had lost their Moon Stones… all because he and his Pokémon decided to fall asleep in the sunny field.

Janine wanted to just step on his neck and end it. She felt she would have been well within her rights to do so. People had been killed for far less in the world.

But self-control took over and he decided that killing Naruto simply was too much… because if she was going to get her goddamn stones back he would damn sure be helping with the process.

"Wake up now!" Janine shouted at the top of her lungs before stomping down angrily on Naruto's belly.

A hard exhale of air and spittle came from Naruto as he sat up and held his stomach, looking around until he saw an angry kunoichi standing over him, "Hey Janine… err, I can see up your skirt again."

"Naruto…" She said sweetly in a tone of voice that sent a shiver of instinctive fear down Naruto's spine, "Could you be a dear and tell me where our Moon Stones are? My vision must be bad because I can't see them anywhere around here."

Naruto started looking around rapidly as he felt there was something wrong with how she asked him that question. And it became clear just what that was. The stones were gone, "Oh… crap." Naruto pulled out his Poke Balls and called his two still sleeping Pokémon back into them as he got up and started backing away towards the water to put some much advised distance between himself and the angry Janine, "I don't know what happened! One second I was training and messing around, the next second I fell asleep!"

This did not stop Janine from continuing to stalk towards him. He could only thank his lucky stars that she didn't walk around armed because he was sure she would have tried to maim him by now if that were the case.

Beating a hasty retreat towards the surface of the river, he sighed in relief when he realized that Janine couldn't water-walk. Still, that didn't stop her from growling at him and issuing a threat as Hogohei resurfaced from beneath the water, "Naruto you had better help me get those stones back by sundown or I swear I'm making you pay me back for every last stone in that sack… with interest!"

"I don't know who took 'em!" Naruto exclaimed, waving his arms wildly as streams of desperate tears flew from his eyes, "I told you, I was just training and I fell asleep with all of my Pokémon except Hogohei!" Naruto then held up the Shellder, possibly as a shield just in case it was necessary.

Janine tried to stem her anger. She could take it out on the person that actually stole the stones, and she knew it was a person because this seemed like the effects of Sing, 'If Naruto wasn't doing anything to any wild Pokémon that knew Sing they wouldn't have just used it on him and his two Pokémon for no reason. Someone that trains Pokémon did this.'

Things weren't as bad as they seemed though.

If the thieving trainer was anything like her they would first try to make a quick buck as hauling those stones around came with a litany of problems as could be clearly seen by her and Naruto's current predicament.

Well the first place that the thief would go was obvious to the girl that had been running all over Cerulean City all day trying to find a good buyer for the stones.

XxX

(Cerulean City – Northern End of Town)

"I can't believe that bastard tried to get me to fence those Moon Stones for 850 a stone…" The female thief grumbled to herself, still hauling the sack over her shoulder as she walked on the road heading towards a fork where she could either head north or east. Damn this was hard work. She needed a physically strong Pokémon to do this kind of thing for her, "Are you kidding me? I can get 1000 the next town over…"

"Give me back my stones so I can kick your ass!"

The pretty young bandit stopped walking down the path and turned around to see the blonde kid wearing orange that she had robbed not even an hour ago glaring heatedly at her with his fists balled up. Next to him was some girl that looked like a ninja from what she could tell. She didn't seem to be too happy to find her either.

"Uh…" The girl started to say in defense, "Don't you mean, 'Give me back my stones _before_ I kick your ass?'" She offered as an alternative to Naruto's opening statement.

"No…" Naruto said, deadpanning a stare at the girl as he tapped his foot impatiently on the road, "Because that would mean that I'm not going to kick your ass if you give me the Moon Stones. I'm kicking your ass no matter what you do, I just want my stones first so that you don't lose 'em."

"Wow. Love that honesty." Janine said to her companion dryly before pointing threateningly at the thief, "Either way, I want my stones. Don't mess with my money princess…" She finished threateningly, "…It isn't going to end well."

It seemed like the girl was thinking about her 'options' before she chose to speak again, "Let me respond to that in the following manner." She swiftly released a Pokémon from her Poke Ball into the air and jumped up to grab hold of its legs with her free hand, "Get us out of here Puriri!" She cried as her round, pink Pokémon puffed itself up like a balloon and began floating away.

"Oh that bitch! I knew it was something like a Jigglypuff!" Janine yelled as she and Naruto started giving chase north as a bridge came into sight, "I'm going to put _her_ to sleep this time!" Just wait… that Jigglypuff couldn't stay in the air forever. It couldn't hold its breath and the air in its balloon-like body for too long and eventually they would have to make a landing.

As they continued to run down the road, it turned into a bridge spanning a long body of water that sat between two cliffs. The thieving girl's Jigglypuff continued to float clean over it all while Naruto and Janine were forced to follow on foot and keep pace that way.

A bright-eyed blonde simply couldn't tear his eyes away from the airborne Jigglypuff though.

Naruto could fully see why they could be great for the ninja arts. It was so obvious. This girl that had stolen from him would have never had the slightest chance of even getting the stones in the first place had it not been for her Pokémon, and had it not been for her use of her Jigglypuff for a quick escape she would have been facing the music for her actions back in Cerulean City.

"Kami, Pokémon are _awesome_! Look at that thing go!" Naruto then flinched away a bit when he saw Janine glare at him, "I mean; we need to run faster! Err… stop that bitch! Go to sleep! Angry generic potential threat number three! All that stuff!"

The two started running over the bridge, attracting the attention of five older male and female Pokémon trainers that seemed to be waiting for someone to try and gain passage to cross the bridge.

One of the trainers squinted at the approaching Naruto and Janine to try and get a good look at them, "Hm… blonde hair… ugly-ass orange and blue summer clothes… whisker-marks? That's the guy!" A smirk came over their faces as they pulled out Poke Balls and blocked off the way to stop the younger pair, "Not so fast! This is the Nugget Bridge Challenge! You can't get past without battling-!"

"Get the fuck out of the way of me and my money!" Janine snapped as they still ran up to the blockade of humanity, not caring about the nobodies that were in their way, even if they were older and threatening looking to normal people their age. Neither of them were normal.

Angry looks appeared on the faces of all of the trainers who then pulled out their Poke Balls, "You've got to beat us to get past this point!" One of them shouted as they released Rattata, Ekans, Nidoran, and a Mankey to get them to stop and battle properly per the challenge of the bridge, "Now stop and-."

"Shut up and move! Grimer, Mud-Slap!" Janine sent out her Grimer who threw nasty globs of its body at the eyes of the Pokémon, hitting them and blinding them.

Choosing to follow her lead as making Janine any angrier would not be good for anyone there, Naruto decided to do as she wanted and he chose to clear the way. He instantly allowed Fukigenko out of his Poke Ball, "Strength!" Fukigenko began glowing white and smashed each blinded Pokémon out of the way while Naruto made clones that kicked each trainer over the side of the bridge, the combined attack knocking them all over the sides and into the water, "There. They're gone. Now calm down."

"I'll calm down when I'm hauling a sack of Moon Stones on my back again!" Janine replied, getting her Grimer to return to its Poke Ball before she got out of recall range while Naruto did the same with his Tyrogue.

The pair of shinobi ran past a stunned looking adult wearing a black suit and a long trench coat at the other end of the bridge who had been waiting on the result of the blonde boy's attempt to pass the Nugget Bridge Challenge. Well that counted as a pass as he managed to beat all of the trainers and their Pokémon… even if it wasn't necessarily conventional.

He stared at the two running shinobi until they both got out of sight and shook his head before deciding to go back towards town to make a call and give his report.

Yeah… Boss Giovanni had to hear about this one.

XxX

(Just North of Cerulean City – Route 25)

Naruto and Janine were forced to stop as they had managed to lose the Jigglypuff and its thieving trainer during the distracting mess on the bridge, "No…" Janine said desperately, "We couldn't have lost her now. All that effort." All that money.

"Hold on a sec." Naruto released his Growlithe and much to his delight he was wide awake and just as pissed off as he had hoped the short-tempered dog would be. It was quite clear that Ranbouen was aware of the fact that it had been a Pokémon that put him to sleep, "Boy, can you help us? I need you to sniff out the sack full of Moon Stones we had."

Ranbouen barked in affirmation of Naruto's request. It would be an easy trail to pick up. The sack had originally smelled of Janine since it was hers to begin with. Add on the unearthly smell of all of those Moon Stones and the little puppy wouldn't even have to try to pick up that scent. He could probably have followed the distinct smell of the stones alone straight to the coastline from there.

And follow the smell he did as Ranbouen took off in the direction he smelled the Moon Stones emanating from with Naruto and Janine following closely behind.

They eventually came to a stop outside of a forested area that was probably the place where the thief had chosen to hide for the time being to lose them and Janine motioned with her hands that she would try to circle around to cut the girl's escape route off in case she was able to make a run for it again.

Naruto nodded and pointed straight into the forest to say that he was going to sneak right in and lift the Moon Stones right back to put an end to this whole thing. With something of a rudimentary plan made, both of them split up and Naruto started heading in silently while Janine went to circle.

On the ground in the forest, the girl sat with an exhausted looking Jigglypuff laying there taking deep breaths after having to inhale deeply and hold it breath for so long so that they could float away, "Puriri… don't worry, get some rest. We lost those guys." She said, allowing the Jigglypuff to return to the Poke Ball, "Seriously… how did I wind up getting chased by a ninja girl? And that other kid might as well have been some kind of marathon runner."

A smirk came onto Naruto's face as he continued to sneak closer while using the trees as cover, but he couldn't let his head swell at that moment. He had to snatch that stupid sack of bothersome stones back. It wasn't really about the money to him. It was more about the fact that he had gotten successfully ambushed.

Well he was going to get his stones back. He could hear a running body of water nearby, so if he could just grab the stuff he could head for it and make his way across it to make his own escape. And it would serve her right.

"Tackle Kame-chan!"

A shell flew at Naruto from a hidden area like someone had thrown a rock and smashed the trunk of a tree he had been hiding behind, blowing his cover and forcing him to face off with the creature that did it.

The top of the brown shell was obviously hard from the damage that it managed to do being hurtled at a tree trunk, but as it sat on the ground, a pair of little light blue arms, legs, and a tail emerged from the shell along with the blue head of a turtle.

Still keeping a wary eye on it, Naruto pulled out his Pokédex to figure out what was up, _"Squirtle; the Tiny Turtle Pokémon. Squirtle draws its long neck into its shell to launch incredible water attacks with amazing range and accuracy. The blasts can be quite powerful."_

"You're really pushing your luck here." The same girl that had been on the ground with her Jigglypuff came out of hiding, choosing to drop down from a concealed tree branch with a displeased look on her face, "Why don't you just cut your losses and leave already? How many times do I have to get one over on you today?"

But wait…

When Naruto turned around to where he had seen the thief beforehand to make sure that the sack was still there he saw the exact same girl smirking and now standing facing him as well, "I don't care if you have a clone, you're giving me my stones back."

"A clone? Not even close. Meta-chan could you please?" At the girl in front of him's behest, the doppelganger behind her suddenly transformed into a formless purple blob with a face. Another Pokémon it seemed. One that had an awesome transformation technique, "I used my Ditto Meta-chan as a decoy while we rested just in case you caught up again."

"Of course I caught up. Even if you are a crook with some good tricks I'm not letting you get away with those. I got those fair and square myself thief-girl." Naruto responded, realizing that he was facing down a Squirtle, had a Ditto at his back, and didn't know what else this girl had up her sleeve. Even if she couldn't fight on her own that didn't mean that she wasn't dangerous.

"Calling me a thief is such an ugly word. I prefer the term 'clandestine businesswoman' myself." The girl remarked before realizing that Naruto wasn't in much of a playing mood after having been given the runaround all afternoon, "Okay fine then… whatever. You still aren't getting those stones. That's a big payday. Kame-chan, Bubble!"

Countless bubbles were sent flying from the Squirtle's mouth at Naruto, surrounding him and the forest area with them even though Naruto was able to dodge them. The sheer volume actually caused him to take a few hits when he realized that they were actually painful to the touch when they burst on his person, managing to actually leave physical marks on him even under his clothes.

"He's fast." The thief noted, impressed by how agile Naruto was as well, "But these bubbles will slow him down at the touch even if he thinks he's tough enough to take a few of them… and he's outnumbered."

Despite the fact that she tried to keep her comment to herself as she urged her Squirtle , Naruto still heard it and remembered that he wasn't outnumbered either. He didn't mean his clones because the volume of bubbles that kept filling the forest would injure his clones on contact and dispel them. He had other partners to back him up.

"I'm never outnumbered." Naruto drew a Poke Ball and let it fly, releasing his Shellder into his arms, "Hogohei, use Withdraw for me really quick." Naruto said with a devious grin as his Pokémon let out an affirmative cry and did as Naruto asked, clasping its shell tight defensively.

It was almost unbelievable how asinine Naruto's next move was from the outward perspective of one that was not used to risking their own physical well-being on mostly trivial matters.

Naruto came out from behind tree cover holding Hogohei's shell up to intercept the bubbles that were still hanging in the air like mines and still being shot his way.

It was almost too weird to accept at first for the girl in the black dress until she realized that Naruto was getting through by using his Pokémon's hard shell like a shield, "You've got to be kidding me! Are you out of your mind? Water Gun!"

The answer to her question was given when her Squirtle fired a blast of water from its mouth at Naruto and Hogohei, only for Naruto to jump to the side and dodge prior to throwing Hogohei like a large shuriken right at the turtle Pokémon that was spearheading the attack against him, "How about this for a Tackle!"

The move smashed into the front of the thief's Squirtle and sent it slamming into a tree, prompting her to move towards her Ditto, "Meta-chan give me the Moon Stones and Transform to stop this kid!"

"You can't call me a kid. I'm the same age as you." Naruto said in a slightly offended manner, "Ranbouen finish using Dig! Now!"

The girl ignored him and kept running from Naruto towards her Ditto, but before she could reach the valued sack of Moon Stones, the ground between herself and the transforming purple blob burst to reveal Naruto's Growlithe who grabbed the sack in his mouth and with a growl tossed the large sack at Naruto who caught it right out of the air.

"Hey!" The pretty female thief shouted at losing her stones, "That was really underhanded you know! Don't you know that the hero's supposed to defeat the person that stole from them decisively before they take their loot back? Give the stones back until you beat me at least!"

"No way!" Naruto said happily as he recalled Hogohei, the Shellder's job well done having been accomplished, "I got what I wanted, so I'm going back to town. And I hope you learned a lesson." And that lesson was to never mess with Uzumaki Naruto or steal from him… because he would pursue you to the ends of the planet.

"You're not getting away that easily! Kame-chan, Water Gun!"

The Squirtle had been down and hurting, but was not out. It got up and blasted a spray of water at Naruto's tree limb, breaking it and forcing Naruto to jump back down to the ground. This forest was seriously lacking good branches. The trees in this country with the exception of the ones in Viridian Forest really weren't meant for tree hopping, "Ranbouen come on, we're out of here!"

Both Naruto and his faithful canine Pokémon companion began charging towards Naruto's primary escape avenue, which was crossing the waterway that he had heard in the background before he had confronted the thief. Hey, he wasn't Shikamaru but he didn't have to be when it came to making an escape plan.

It turned out to be a quickly moving path of water that led to the shoreline cove further east, but that was unimportant. It was pretty wide, but it was something that Naruto could clear by jumping on the rocks that he could see sticking out of the water. He began jumping and turned around to see how his pursuer was doing, but he then noticed that Ranbouen was still on the original side of the river.

He was about to call out to the dog to hurry up and follow him but palmed his face hard. Even though he recognized Ranbouen's potential as a ninken he wasn't one, and he didn't have the agility one developed in the animals via the hard and specialized training that was necessary to get it.

Cursing to himself in his own head at his own shortsightedness, Naruto called Ranbouen back into his Poke Ball and sighed in relief at dodging a bullet. Of course Ranbouen didn't like water outside of drinking it. He was a fire Pokémon.

But he had dallied about too long on that lonesome rock in the river for his Growlithe's benefit and paid for it.

"Water Gun!"

A blast of water from the original riverside he had jumped from hit Naruto and knocked him into the fast moving water, sweeping him up in the waves that pulled him downstream. The water was too quick for him to pull himself out and it carried the sputtering thirteen year old ninja away.

The girl and her Squirtle walked towards the end of the river's ledge as she looked down the way that Naruto had been taken with a somewhat vindicated look on her face, flipping her brown hair over her shoulder. But wait… there was something else really important that was with him the whole time, "*gasp* The Moon Stones! Kame-chan let's go!"

Her Squirtle hopped in the water and let her ride on the back of its shell as it traversed down river to follow Naruto's body as far as it just so happened to go. Eventually this waterway would open up into Cerulean Cove and it was there he could be found.

Along with the stones…

…Because those were what was really important here.

XxX

(Cerulean Cove)

The rapids eventually tapered out and became calm as the river let out to the ocean. It didn't take long for the girl to find Naruto's distinct shade of orange lying with his body halfway in the water and halfway dragged out onto shore where he seemed to give up and pass out. And the Moon Stones were right there with him, clutched in his arms desperately as if he held onto them for dear life.

"Not really the smartest move." The girl said as she got off of her Squirtle and began walking along the beach to get to Naruto's body, "You might as well have been trying to hold yourself above water while tied to an anchor. But I guess I can thank you. If you hadn't held onto them they would be sitting at the bottom of the cove right now."

She pulled the sack away from Naruto's body and chose to kneel down to get a look at his face. For some reason she had an unexplainable urge to do something and then was just as good a time as any since he was out of it.

Those damn whisker-marks couldn't be real.

He used her thumb to rub his cheek and raised an eyebrow when she brushed a smudge right through the markings. She knew they were fake. If they were real it would have been cool, but temporary tattoos of whiskers? How lame.

Wait.

Not only did she rub off a part of Naruto's whisker-marks she also rubbed off some other substance that seemed to be giving him his skin tone, "Makeup?"

Blue eyes popped open with a smirk adorning 'Naruto's' features as 'he' quickly dove for the sack of stones and freed them from the girl's grasp, "Naruto now!"

From beneath the ocean water, a pair of glowing red chains flew out and wrapped around both the thief and her Squirtle, "What in the world is this?" Her arms were bound tightly to her side and she couldn't reach for any of her other Poke Balls due to the chains around her that then stopped glowing and looked normal, "What do you mean 'Naruto now?'" She demanded to know, "Aren't you Naruto? That ninja girl that was chasing me didn't look like a Naruto!"

"Yeah. I'd kill my dad if he named me that." The fake Naruto quickly shifted clothes in a blur to reveal it to be a thoroughly disguised Janine, "I knew you'd use the river to make a getaway if Naruto couldn't stop you so I started running towards the cove to cut off your escape. I didn't expect to see him first though."

_(Flashback – After Naruto Was Knocked Into the River)_

'_This sucks!' Naruto thought to himself as he fought to keep his head above the water, 'I can either hold on to the stones or call out Hogohei to save my ass!' But he wasn't just going to let go of the loot. It was the entire reason this day had been so crappy and he wasn't about to let them slip just like that._

_With his arms wrapped around the sack, Naruto was able to make a hand-seal to bring clones to his side. But it was a useless effort as just like him they were dashed among the rocks and debris in the river just the same as the original._

_One clone survived though, managing to do so by keeping a hold of Naruto and the Moon Stones as well. So even Kage Bunshin had self-preservation instincts? From the way he saw them get destroyed in battle at his behest he figured that they were fearless._

_Either way it was no help to him._

"_Jeez Naruto!" Running alongside the river trying to keep pace with the faster moving water was Janine who had seen the blonde pass her by from her place on land, "How in the hell did you get in there?" She brought out her Spinarak that sat on her back while she tried to save Naruto, "I can't catch up to even try getting him out!"_

_He simply wasn't going to last until the rapids died down. There was no way. She wanted to scream at him to let go of the stones. As much as she wanted the money it wasn't worth drowning over. Holding onto them would have given him at least a fighting chance of surviving in comparison to the zero-chance he would have if he didn't let go of the damn things._

_Meanwhile in the water, Naruto's lungs were filling up with an uncomfortable amount of water. All of the thrashing about in the world wasn't going to substitute for swimming, and no amount of swimming acumen was going to save him in that current._

_Come on._

_There had to be some way he could get out of this. He had been in far worse. He needed a lifeline, something. Anything to grab a hold of. A rope. Or maybe a chain?_

_Naruto let one hand go of the sack and pointed it towards the tree line on shore, trying to focus and mould his chakra appropriately, 'A long, sturdy, solid chain of my chakra.' Naruto thought to himself, 'I can do it!' His eyes started to turn red as the Kyuubi's chakra began leaking out of him in desperation._

_His clone then grabbed his outstretched arm at the forearm. The two locked eyes in the water. His theory of how to form the chain from earlier was also in the mind of his chakra construct which was basically a more fragile version of himself._

_Much like the Rasengan they would split the responsibilities of the jutsu between them. Only instead of one focusing on maintaining the power and the other keeping the shape of the jutsu as Naruto would have done with the Rasengan, Naruto's clone focused on maintaining the shape and Naruto himself focused on expelling the chakra from his body._

_And the very real and dense chakra of the Kyuubi was the last touch needed to finish it up._

_From Naruto's outstretched hand, a single long pulsing red chain with a spear on the end of it flew and stabbed into the trunk of a tree, holding fast from how deeply the spear impaled itself. The clone let go of Naruto with a happy look on its face as it was dashed to death on a rock. It had helped Naruto complete his _

_Janine came to a stop when the red chain flew out in front of her and stabbed into a tree across the way. It came from Naruto and eventually the red glow faded to resemble a normal one. _

_What? How?_

_Whatever. She could ask questions later. Right now she had to get him out of the water now that he had finally managed to stop himself so that she could catch up, "Come on Spinarak, use __String Shot__ and help me pull Naruto out!"_

(End Flashback)

"Yeah, if I were him I'd be more upset than he is." Janine said, nodding sagely now that she safely had the sack back in her possession. Yep, having all of the stones back mellowed her right out.

A grin then crossed Janine's face as Naruto started walking his way out of the water, the two chains that were trapping their thieving foes were seemingly coming from his hands. It honestly made him look like some kind of drenched creature from the deep, stalking onto land to claim his next victim.

But instead of an angry or threatening look on his face he had a satisfied grin of victory.

It was just too much for the girl that was bound by the chains, "Are you telling me, that this guy just made chains out of thin air? What kind of magic is that? It's got to be some kind of illusion or something." She said in disbelief.

"Nope, it's ninjutsu." Naruto said, very satisfied at the jutsu. Yep. All it took was a clone to help him balance out shaping the chakra and expelling it, and a burst of the Kyuubi's chakra to force the chakra to take a concrete and lasting tangible form, "Those are my Chakura no Kusari (Chakra Chains)." Naruto kept a tight grip on the chains and yanked on them tightly, slamming the girl and her Squirtle together with enough force and authority to knock them both unconscious.

Even though it was probably very malicious of her, Janine felt a great deal of satisfaction seeing that thief of a girl get what was coming to her.

Yes, she also did realize the great amount of irony in that feeling, but hey, the girl tried stealing from her. She got what she deserved.

Well, not yet.

Janine quickly sauntered over to the unconscious girl and felt over her person, putting a blush on Naruto's face as it looked like she was outright being groped by the handsy kunoichi.

"Ah, here we go." Janine said, lifting the girl's wallet and pulling out the wad of money that she had in there, "A little bit to line our pockets with for making us run all over creation all afternoon long."

The term 'an eye for an eye' came to mind for Naruto as he realized that Janine was looting the girl's body, thus he didn't stop her. And Pokémon trainers usually fought one another for predetermined purses of money anyway when formal challenges were dealt. Not that this was a formal challenge of a battle, but still.

Naruto walked over and took the wallet out of Janine's grasp, but she didn't care, she had what was important out of the equation; the money. Speaking of what she managed to grab from the thief, Janine tossed the other thing that she had taken from the girl Naruto's way, "Here. Did she get close enough to take this from you?"

Catching it out of the air, the soaked to the bone Konoha shinobi noticed that she had thrown him a Pokédex, "No. This isn't mine. It's hers." Weird. He didn't know that Professor Oak had given another person a Pokédex. He was under the impression that he had been specially entrusted with just one as had Blue since Blue was Oak's grandson, "Hah, her name's Green." He said, putting the Pokédex back with the girl and thinking about just how much stuff was named for colors in Kanto.

"Well then 'Green'." Janine said, patting the sack of Moon Stones, "It was fun, but we'll have to be moving along now. Enjoy your little sundown nap at the beach, and remember that messing with a pair of ninja, even kids, never ends well." She then felt the sack get taken away from her suddenly by Naruto, "Hey! What's the big idea?"

She saw him holding out some kind of open scroll that he placed the sack on before it suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke with only the scroll remaining. Naruto picked it up off of the ground and rolled it back up before putting it back in his pack, "That's just for safekeeping. Nobody can get the stones out now except me since no one knows how to use chakra."

Another of Naruto's weird abilities she assumed.

But that led to another question.

"Why didn't you just do that from the start when we first got the stones?" If he could do that it probably would have saved them an entire day of trouble. It would have been way easier on her poor aching back that was for certain. Those stupid Moon Stones were heavy.

Naruto shrugged and started walking away from the area with Janine, "Because you were being all territorial about the stones last night." She slept cradling the sack to her body… it was weird, "I didn't even get to touch them after we left Mt. Moon. Then when we first got to town you were dead set on selling them quick. I didn't even get to touch the bag again until you went off by yourself to find a buyer. Sealing them away then would have been a waste of time if we were just going to sell the damn things."

"I swear you're the weirdest ninja ever…"

The two kept chattering as they left the cove and headed back towards Cerulean City before night fell. But the two of them managed to miss the fact that the girl on the beach, Green, was smirking, feigning her prone state and playing possum, '…Sometimes you've got to take a small setback when the odds look grim. No need to keep fighting a losing battle.' She thought to herself as Naruto and Janine left, 'Those two were trickier than I thought. And that blonde boy is just odd.'

XxX

(The Next Day – North of Cerulean City – Route 24/25)

Training was on the agenda again today as Naruto was trying to travel at an appropriate pace to allow Jiraiya time to catch up to him after he finished whatever it was he had planned on doing out at sea. But after such a major breakthrough in his training yesterday in learning the Chakra Chains jutsu it was a day for training his Pokémon.

He had to learn how to make more than just two, one per arm, but that was really inconsequential in the face of his monumental achievement.

"Good job Fukigenko!" Naruto exclaimed as he had just watched his Tyrogue beat a wild an Oddish, a small blue Pokémon with no arms, but a lot of grass protruding from the top of its head, "You're on fire today!"

The little Tyrogue seemed to not care as he crossed his arms and turned his back away from the battle, but the smirk on his face showed that it felt quite pleased with its victory, "Reh!"

Standing off to the side, Janine shook her head as Naruto jogged his way back over to her with a grin on his face, "Why didn't you catch it?" She herself had just caught a Venonat that morning during her own personal training and was feeling very pleased with herself.

"I already caught one this morning and sent it to Professor Oak." Naruto replied, cleaning his ear out with his pinky as Fukigenko started practicing his punches now that there was no more opponent to fight, "Good thing we met that Bill guy at his house yesterday and he told me about the whole Pokémon Storage System thing because I wasn't about to catch all of those Pokémon."

How was he going to take care of so many Pokémon all at once while he was travelling in a strange land? He didn't know about Kanto and he knew less about the different Pokémon there as well. He had Ranbouen so that he could help him heal, he had Hogohei just as a test of his Poke Balls, and he had Fukigenko because there was just something about that angry little bastard that he liked.

So he had caught them because there was something about them all that he just liked.

The Oddish and the Rattata he had caught that morning just to make sure he could really send Pokémon to Prof. Oak's lab were ones that he didn't really wish to keep in his normal team. He didn't have a connection to them like he felt at first contact with the others so he wasn't going to keep them in his party. Apparently he could only carry six on his person anyway and that meant he had three slots left to fill that he was going to make the most of.

He'd know when something new came along that he liked. He was good in on-the-fly decision making.

"Reh!"

Naruto and Janine's attention was attracted by Fukigenko paying attention and preparing to do battle with another Pokémon, this time a Pokémon with a skinny stem-like body, root-like feet, one green leaf on either side of its body, and a yellow bell-shaped head, "Another Bellsprout? Bring it on!" Naruto simply ran towards his Pokémon to give him direction and get him more experience.

A frown was evident on Janine's face as she watched him do so, 'Naruto… I know a thing or two about Gyms. If you think that just because you beat Brock back in Pewter City you're going to win here in Cerulean you might not like what happens.' It was definitely possible for him to win with his team, but it was going to be a total war of attrition, 'If you're really going for that badge I hope you come to me first.'

While they might not have been good friends so early in their relationship they were still partners to some extent. If there was something this straightforward that she could do to help she'd do it, but if he knew why she was so knowledgeable about Gyms that might change the way things were between them. He'd probably treat her differently because of it. So she'd keep it to herself until it was necessary to tell him… but then again such a revelation was a long ways off.

They weren't anywhere near her hometown and a ninja needed her secrets after all.

With a sigh as Naruto and Fukigenko continued their work at hand Janine decided she needed to take a bit of a walk for a change of scenery, "I'll be back soon okay? I'm just going to stretch my legs for a bit."

"Alright, take your time. We're not going anywhere." Naruto responded, giving her a thumbs up before hopping on one foot to avoid the slap of a vine that had been aimed at him, "Oi! Picking a fight with me is the last thing you want you stupid weed! Beat Fukigenko first if you can! Use Fake Out!"

The last thing Janine saw before going for a walk along the waterways of Route 25 was Naruto's Tyrogue knocking the Bellsprout back by clapping his hands and releasing a wave of pressure that knocked it back.

Her wandering to settle her mind was pretty successful in the end though as she had been walking for longer than she thought she would have when she had first set out from Naruto's training spot.

She eventually wound up on the bridge that she and Naruto had run across and beaten up the trainers on the previous day.

Sighing again that day, she leaned forward against the side of the bridge and looked out over the water at her own reflection below, sparing a chuckle to herself, "Heh. I wonder what Otou-sama would think of how weird Naruto is."

He might have gotten a kick out of Naruto… but she and her father weren't really on the best of terms at the moment anyway so she probably wouldn't be introducing the two. It really wouldn't have been the best idea with who he was, or more accurately the group he worked for.

"Well if it isn't Janine." A feminine voice said, filling Janine's ears and catching her attention, "I'm surprised to see you out in the daylight. I figured you slept during the day to save all of your energy for stealing things at night."

Oh great… she knew that voice. This was the very last person she wanted to see in this town, but she knew she'd have to if Naruto was really going to challenge the Pokémon Gym in Cerulean City… because then she'd have had no choice.

At least if she had come across this person under those circumstances the focus would have been solely on the battle and the two of them wouldn't ever have had to interact other than a few sharp remarks and catty comments. Now that initiative was all shot to hell.

Well she could face the music like a true warrior and deal with this little run-in if this was what was destined to occur. Putting on her best fake smile that was still extremely strained due to the circumstances of it, Janine turned around, "Hi Misty…"

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 4: Cerulean City<span>

Minato had been requested by Oak to transport him to Cerulean City via Hiraishin no Jutsu during one of his routine check-ins and not seeing much trouble in it did so for the professor.

"How old are you Minato?" Oak randomly asked him as the two traveled over the water of one of the city's rivers towards a particular location in a location that was a well-kept secret amongst the Pokémon information community.

While Oak rode at a reserved pace on the back of a large blue sea creature with four flippers, a long neck, curled ears, a short horn on its forehead, and a shell on its back. Oak called it a Lapras and it seemed good for ferrying people about.

Minato instead chose to just walk. The water was calm enough for him to stand on easily with chakra. Oak called the younger man a showoff.

"I'm 23." The Konoha jounin said as they continued along casually. It was such a nice day, "Why? What's on your mind?"

Oak just shrugged and kept speaking, "I was just wondering, what exactly are your goals in your village? Once you go back and hopefully once that war of yours ends what do you wish to do with your life?" He was a brilliant young man with a bright personality even if he did seem to cause more problems than one could count… and never anything small either.

"Well I guess I'll keep on trying to become Hokage." Minato commented, wondering how things were going back home, "…There's also this girl."

"A girl?" A rather lecherous grin appeared on the professor's face that Minato couldn't see due to his own internal musings, "…Go on. What's her name?"

A red blush sprang to Minato's face as something about the way Oak had said that made him feel as if he were talking to his sensei Jiraiya. Despite that feeling of warning, he kept speaking, "Well her name is Kushina. Uzumaki Kushina. You want to see her?" As he brought up his girlfriend's name and showed Oak a picture that he carried with him in his supplies, not noticing the slacked jaw of the man as he gawked at the image of Kushina, he was wondering how she was doing at home.

He asked her to take care and watch over Kakashi, Rin, and Obito while he was gone, but Kakashi was probably going to drive her insane with how strict he was all the time. Eleven year old kids should not be that stern… ever.

And Kushina as his superior showed in the past when he started mouthing off about what he believed constituted a proper shinobi could and would take liberties to pummel him a bit to keep him in line because he directed those remarks at her quite a bit.

And Jiraiya wasn't there to keep an eye on Kushina keeping an eye on his team so there was no insurance that he'd end up with the little Hatake chunin in one piece later.

Hm, maybe he needed to better plan out how his homestead affairs were left, because Kushina was going to kick Kakashi's ass a lot. Oh he could take it. He was a tough kid and it would do him some good. Kushina might have beaten a lot of people up in Konoha for when they picked on her but she would never really hurt anyone… she was just a little rowdy. She didn't even like him at first, for years.

…But come hell or high water that was the woman he was going to marry once the voyage away from Kanto was finally shipped up and prepared to go. Yep. Marry, settle down, have some brats to keep away from Jiraiya's influence… all of that good stuff.

The kid the two of them made would probably be one hell of an offspring all things with both of their traits as people and shinobi considered. He really hoped that the baby would wind up getting her hair though. He pitied their poor future baby if he wound up getting hair anything like his own untamable spiky hell of a mess because the only alternative was to get rid of it all, and the men in his family did _not_ look good with shaved heads.

He knew that much from when he was a kid and Kushina did it as a joke.

Kami help him when it came to making a bride out of Kushina.

"Ah. We're here."

Minato noticed that Oak had landed his Lapras at a small outlet and found that they had traveled quite a way outside of Cerulean City to a part of the waterways very concealed by the cliffs that apparently seemed to get more treacherous and foggy as they had continued onward.

As he followed the professor's lead, Minato saw him stop just short of entering some small entrance that was barely large enough to fit an adult person through. The mist was so thick in this lowered area that one would miss it if they didn't already know where it was, "Where is here?"

"Cerulean Cave." Oak said as he checked himself over and nodded when he found that he had a full attachment of six Poke Balls on his person. He seemed to look like he was going to need every last one and a serious look was on his face. More serious than Minato had ever seen, "It's a well-kept secret only available to those that are the best of the best when it comes to training Pokémon. Champions."

"What are you doing here then?" Minato wondered aloud, his arms crossed over his chest as he continued to watch Oak prepare for his spelunking into the cave.

A chuckle came from Oak and he looked up at Minato with a sharp look in his eyes, "You saved me during a mistake and you saw me during a weak moment back at my lab two weeks ago, but trust me when I say that you don't have to worry about me." He removed his lab coat and instead of his normal clothes underneath he had on a muscle shirt that revealed quite a bit of definition, "I was once crowned the most powerful Pokémon Trainer in Kanto in my younger days."

"That must have been a long time ago…" Minato cracked, even though at this point he started making sure that he was fully equipped for a possible battle himself.

"It was ten years ago…" Oak growled out with a tick mark on his head, "I'm 36… how old do you think I am?" It wasn't really important though, "I can't in all honesty ask you to come into this place with me Minato." He said, getting serious again, "The Pokémon in here are more powerful than anywhere else in Kanto… or anywhere else on the entire continent I'd venture to say. It's a murderer's row."

Wow. He had never seen the older man this serious before. It was kind of weird. But that just asserted the mindset that Minato was not going to just leave him there if that were the case, "That's fine. I can't let you go in there by yourself. That's not what Konoha comrades do."

Comrades huh? Never did Oak really think he'd wind up as a comrade of a 'ninja' with the strangest accrual of supernatural abilities he had ever seen. Funny how life works out sometimes, "Well if you're sure you're ready. Remember, we're supposed to be here to simply observe. A fight really isn't in either of our best interests in here."

"Got it." Minato said as he decided to lead the way inside. Was it really that bad in there? He hadn't run into any Pokémon he'd deem 'scary-strong' since he had been in Kanto.

This event would mark the basis of Minato's report back to Konoha on the potential combat capabilities of Pokémon in war between the shinobi nations. It was too bad that the notes he himself had taken to bring back home did not survive the experience they were supposed to record.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire).

Hogohei (Shellder)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal).

Fukigenko (Tyrogue)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Fake Out (Fighting).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Spinarak  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Constrict (Normal), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost).

Grimer  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Zubat  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying).

Venonat  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass).

Green's Current Pokémon Team

Puriri (Jigglypuff)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Sing (Normal), Pound (Normal), DoubleSlap (Normal), Defense Curl (Normal).

Kame-chan (Squirtle)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bubble (Water), Water Gun (Water), Tackle (Normal), Tail Whip (Normal), Mega Punch (Normal), Withdraw (Normal).

Meta-chan (Ditto)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Transform (Normal).

* * *

><p><strong>Well ladies and gents, how are you all doing on this fine day? I hope you enjoyed because that would just make my day today from a bad week. But who cares? You don't. Either way, thanks for reading.<strong>

**Now if you'll excuse me I've got to go to work so that I can pay for a fucking speeding ticket… *sigh* six years and I just now get busted for speeding? Everyone I know has like seven of the damn things by now so I guess I can take some solace in that. **

**As American as apple pie I guess…**

**Kenchi out.**


	6. Honor Amongst Thieves

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. Simple as that. Believe it or not.

**Chapter 6: Honor Amongst Thieves**

* * *

><p>The training of his Pokémon for that day happened to be going quite swimmingly for Naruto who couldn't stop grinning as he worked with Hogohei now, standing on the surface of the water to give his Bivalve Pokémon more of a chance to deal him some damage. He wanted a fighting challenge against a strange opponent. Well he wasn't going to find a wider variety of opponents to face than Pokémon, 'Come on. Where are you coming from?'<p>

A splash erupted from behind Naruto and he jumped away from it only to note that it was a jet of water that had been shot out of the water in that direction, and it was at an angle, so that meant it came from a spot that was closer to the direction he had jumped in.

So that meant-.

SNAP!

"Ow!" Naruto yelped in pain, hopping on the surface of the water on one foot as Hogohei was latched onto him tightly, shell surrounding Naruto's other foot up to the ankle, "Stop using Clamp on me! You could break my ankle like that!" He said before sighing and walking towards shore where he sat down and Hogohei let go of him to rest right next to him.

It was a nice day, and he was enjoying the trip thus far despite being in a strange place. There were parts he could have done without such as the run-in with Team Rocket and the little incident the previous day with Green trying to steal his Moon Stones, but there were also good things about it.

His time in Viridian Forest let him learn a lot about the Pokémon there and his pursuit by the large amounts of Beedrill showed Naruto that Jiraiya's tough training on that ship managed to pay off after two months as he was markedly faster and able to evade them for over an hour. He had bonded with the Pokémon he had thus far and had even developed a tandem attack with Ranbouen that improved his Rasengan. He had even met someone who while it was still too soon to call her a friend he could at least consider a partner of sorts in Janine.

In other words things could have been worse.

Still, there was something missing.

Of course it was simple to point out exactly what that was. The something that was missing was an exceedingly tall white-haired, kabuki-posing pervert that would have gotten Naruto into way more adult situations than he was agedly equipped to handle. He was missing Jiraiya's presence.

"I wonder what Ero-sennin did to figure out what's going on with Kuchiyose no Jutsu." Naruto said to himself, laying back on the grass next to his Shellder in a moment of reprieve, "…Hope he's alright. That pervert is totally lost without me." He remarked with a smirk, only imagining the things that Jiraiya got himself into when Naruto wasn't around to cramp his style. He was certain that when he was around Jiraiya did his best to carry himself as a responsible adult to set an example.

That was honestly extremely scary, because what in the world did he act like when he didn't have Naruto to look out for?

Maybe if Naruto endeavored to read one of Jiraiya's books he'd find out?

No way. If he looked at one of Jiraiya's books and read one cover-to-cover he'd never be able to make eye contact with any pretty girl he knew ever again and he knew it. Maybe that was why Kakashi's nose was always shoved into that book he carried with him? Because if he looked up at any woman in Konoha ever he would automatically picture them sans clothing.

It wasn't like many adult kunoichi he knew by name ever really left much to the imagination dress-wise either.

Yeah, Naruto didn't need that.

Speaking of girls, it had been quite some time since Janine had left him on his own. If she was endeavoring to finally ditch him and let him leave on his own it didn't make a lot of sense as he still had the Moon Stones and after all of the effort it took to get them back he was quite certain that she was not going to leave without them selling them first and taking her cut.

Maybe looking for her was the right thing to do? It was just about lunchtime anyway and maybe they could go back to town and grab something to eat.

And then he'd go to Cerulean Gym and have his Pokémon kick the leader's ass the way he did Brock's in Pewter City! Well… hopefully easier than he kicked Brock's ass because that one was actually very close in hindsight.

Naruto recalled how difficult that battle was and then realized that he knew nothing about this Gym Leader. These people were supposed to be important figures in the towns they lived in, otherwise Brock wouldn't have been head of security for the museum for just a part-time job like he had said that it was.

So it couldn't have been that hard to dredge up some dirt on how to deal with this person. Maybe he'd just check in and figure out a way to prepare or something. It couldn't hurt, but he was supposed to wait for Janine to come back so he could save that for her return. At least that would give him a plan for the afternoon.

"Kid! Hey, kid!"

Naruto's attention was caught by someone calling out to him from the path at the end of the field by the river that Naruto and Hogohei had been training by. It was a man in a black suit and a long trench coat.

Ever the curious one, Naruto got up and called Hogohei back into his Poke Ball to jog up to the man and figure out what he wanted, "Oi, were you talking to me? What do you want?" He asked with squinted eyes. He didn't know this guy at all, but from the grin on the man's face he seemed to know him.

"Kid I saw the number that you did on the trainers on Nugget Bridge yesterday." The man said, patting Naruto heartily on the shoulder, "Very impressive stuff. Both you and your Pokémon, and your pretty little partner too. I think you've got something special."

A grin then sprang to Naruto's own face and a flattered blush came forward, "Heh, you think so? Thanks." He then wondered just what the guy was playing at. Just because he watched him kick the trainers on the bridge aside while he was chasing Green, that wasn't something to seek him out for one entire day later just to tell him, "…What do you want?"

The man chuckled and held his chin in an astute manner, "A guarded one are you? Playing your stuff close to the vest? That's good too. Catch." He threw a golden ball at Naruto that the young man caught in one hand before looking at it, "There you go. Your prize for winning the Nugget Bridge Challenge. It's as good as cash kid. Sell it for 5000 when you get the chance. And there's more where that came from if you're willing to join up with my organization."

Naruto stared at the bit of pure gold in his grasp and tossed it up and down before choosing to bite it and find that it was real, "Organization?" He said in thought, "What kind of organization are you talking about here?"

"You've got just what it takes to join Team Rocket." The man said with a smirk, "You're something special, and the rewards are good for someone with the potential that you have. You don't even need a Pokémon to defeat a Pokémon! Do you have any idea how rare that is?"

The moment Naruto heard Team Rocket he didn't need to hear anything else. A group of people that would take hostages just to keep a cave clear. Not a chance. Naruto just started walking away back towards Cerulean City without saying a word. He didn't need to speak to that person any longer.

However the Team Rocket recruiter took great offense to Naruto blowing him off the way he was choosing to do. That was not a wise course of action if he didn't want to start a fight, "Well if you aren't with Team Rocket, you're against us. Too bad…" He quickly threw out a Poke Ball and prepared to fight, "Ekans, put this brat six feet deep!" A long purple snake with yellow band markings on it came from the Poke Ball and started slithering towards Naruto to attack, "Use Bite!"

Naruto had already released his own response to such an action as the moment he heard the pop of the Poke Ball opening, he jumped directly into the air and twisted about, dodging the Ekans and allowing him to toss a kunai at the Team Rocket member, tagging him directly in the shoulder.

Landing on the ground, Naruto let a Poke Ball fall to the ground as he himself chose to deal with the man himself in case he planned on using any other Pokémon against him, "Hogohei use Swift!" The Shellder fired multiple white stars from its mouth that flew and smashed into the Ekans without fail.

"Gah!" The Team Rocket member touched at the black throwing knife in his shoulder as blood flowed from it, "This kid carries around weapons?" His preoccupation with the blade stuck in his body kept his attention away from a teeth-shattering uppercut that knocked him out cold.

Without a trainer to give it orders, the Ekans was forced to fight off of its own instincts against Naruto's Shellder, but its attempt to bite the water Pokémon failed when Hogohei's shell closed shut, forcing the unfortunate Snake Pokémon to break a fang and hiss in quite a bit of pain.

"Water Gun!"

A blast of water erupted from the opening of the shell the moment it opened and sent the Ekans flying and sliding back against the ground defeated.

Naruto looked over at the two thoroughly beaten opponents, noticing the faint twitch every so often from the Team Rocket member, and grinned at Hogohei before recalling his second Pokémon into its Poke Ball as he decided to head back to Cerulean City before that jerk woke up from his asskicking, "Heh. You did good buddy. Let's go find Janine and grab some lunch."

The broken and beaten up Team Rocket member let out pained groans as he waited for a feeling other than pain to fill his body so that he could move. He'd have to wind up signing his message over videophone to his boss about the stupid brat that turned him down and broke his jaw.

XxX

(North of Cerulean City – Route 24 – Nugget Bridge)

The very stressed smile on the face of Janine wasn't returned in any way, shape, or form from the similarly aged girl standing before her, "Long time no see huh Misty?" She said trying to at least be amicable and at most end this conversation as quickly as possible.

Misty had orange hair that she kept in a side ponytail on her head and wore a sleeveless yellow shirt that exposed much of her midriff, a pair of jean shorts that reached high on her thighs with red suspenders along with white and orange low-top sneakers.

"Long time no see…" Misty said, repeating what Janine had just said, "Is that the only thing you have to say to me? Or did you really forget what you did the last time you were in this city? You and your dad stole badges from the Gym!"

Janine started laughing sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck and trying to wave it off with her other hand, "That was a long time ago."

"That was two years ago!"

"Two years ago is a long time…" Janine defended, poking her fingers together demurely, "And it was a mission that Otou-sama gave me to help him out with… nothing personal." She had been excited to take part in something that would help her father back when she did it, but only regretted the fact that she had gotten them discovered. That had been a problem.

Misty's glare kept up despite this, "And why would a Gym Leader want to steal badges from another Gym? There's a code when it comes to that! I hope he didn't try anything like that with the other Gyms as a cheap way to get you into the Pokémon League."

At that, Janine scoffed and turned away from Misty, "As if. That would involve Otou-sama using the ninja arts for something other than his 'master'… it would mean he was actually trying to help me with his techniques for once." Honestly, she had no idea what her father had done with the badges, only that he had given them to his 'master' for some reason. Janine let out a sigh and turned to face Misty again, "Look, I'm sorry okay. What do you want me to say or do? I can't get the badges back now, and I'm not going to jail for this either after two years… there's something I have to do first. Do you want to fight and try to kick my ass? Would that work?"

"It's not a punishment if it's actually something you want me to do!" Misty snapped before taking a breath to cool down, "Why are you even back here? Shouldn't you be in Fuchsia City anyway?"

Staring down into the water below the bridge at her own reflection once more that attracted her attention again, Janine continued to converse, "I don't need to stay there. I left because I wanted to see if I was different… from… well you know. I wanted to use my training my own way, instead of just how he wanted me to use it. So I can find him and prove something."

A look of remorseful understanding came over Misty's face. So she actually felt regret for what she had done all that time ago? That might have changed things, "So you haven't stolen anything since that last mission you took here?"

"Oh no, I still steal things. Just material things that I can sell now. Nothing anyone will really miss." That response got Misty to bang her head on the side of the bridge for thinking that she had changed in the least, "Well… I _did_ steal things until _he_ caught me in Pewter City last week."

"Who caught you? The police?" Misty asked dryly with a red mark on her forehead from where she had hit it on the sturdy bridge.

"Another ninja named Naruto." At stating Naruto's name Janine remembered that she had left Naruto training up past the bridge outside of town. Ooh, and he said he'd wait for her. He was probably hungry by then if he had waited for that long. She needed to get back, "He's a bit different though." Try very different, "Oh and just so you know, he's probably coming to take a badge from you either today or tomorrow. I don't know which."

Misty palmed her face and shook her head, "Why are you telling me that your friend is about to rob me of badges again? Is this some kind of strategy?"

Janine's eye twitched in response. What did she just get through saying to Misty? She didn't steal things like badges anymore… you couldn't really sell them back, "No… he's coming to battle you. He doesn't need to steal from you to get one. He can just beat you and take it." She hoped, because if Naruto was unable to back such tough talk up she'd have egg all over her face.

Of course, this was taken as a direct challenge. And the fact that the two girls didn't particularly have affable feelings for one another helped alleviate this in no manner whatsoever.

"Let him." The way that Janine had worded it, she made it seem like Naruto's Pokémon combat ability was so far above Misty's that she was just warning her about a beating in advance. As a Gym Leader this did not sit well with Misty at all, "You sound pretty confident in your little boyfriend."

Janine just stared owlishly at Misty after what she had just said before she began laughing uproariously, almost falling clear over the side of the bridge from leaning to alleviate her amusement. At first Misty wondered if the kunoichi had blown a mental fuse but then realized that she was getting a kick out of what was meant to be a rousing insult.

"*laughs* Are you-… are you kidding me? I met him six days ago. He kicked my butt and made me miss out on a big score. We can't trust each other enough to turn our backs on each other at night let alone be friends, and you think he's my boyfriend? You must really be starving for one yourself if you jumped to that conclusion." Janine just kept laughing and started walking away, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye, "You might like him though. He's loud and violent just like you. Just your type."

Watching Janine walk off, still laughing and muttering to herself all the while about what Misty had said got the Cerulean City Gym Leader to grit her teeth before turning and heading back towards town. She had a job to do in running the Gym. Even if she did indeed wish to fight with Janine, it wasn't a good example to be seen engaging in a grudge match out in public. Still, maybe there was some way she could issue a challenge out of this, "How about a wager on the battle then?"

Hearing the words 'wager' and the fact that most wagers came with the possibility of winning large sums of money, Janine stopped laughing, stopped dead in her tracks and turned a direct about-face, "What kind of wager did you have in mind?"

That was just the response that Misty was looking for, especially since Janine stopped laughing and finding humor in their meeting to listen to the terms of the bet, "It's really simple. If your friend can beat me today then I'll pay out ten times the prize money to him and I'll tell you something useful that you might want to know. I promise it's something that you're going to want to hear."

Information huh? Well if it was information that was worth wagering on it would have to be something good, and good intel was always useful to someone like her. Add that onto the fact that a victory would net ten times the prize money, 'Cerulean Gym's normal payout to victors is 4700… that's 47000 yen just like that! Enough to live off of for the both of us easy until we get to the next city!'

Yeah, she was in the moment she heard the substantial sum of money that was to be gained via Naruto's victory.

Still though, there was another facet of the bet that had yet to be hashed out. It was what Janine would be risking in return since there was no way that anything lost would be Naruto's. It would simply be unfair to force him into a wager he was unaware of, and Misty would never go for that anyway even if Janine were that vindictive.

"What about me then?" Janine asked a bit warily, "If Naruto loses and you win the bet what do you want out of me?" From the deceptively sweet smile on Misty's face it would be something that she really wouldn't like. She just knew it.

"If this Naruto kid can't beat me then you have to stay here and work off your debt for stealing badges from the Gym two years ago." Misty stated firmly with no room for negotiating, "You can't coach him either, give him hints, let him borrow any of your Pokémon, anything. He has to win on his own."

Janine started fiddling with the scarf around her neck as she thought about it. It sounded straightforward; lose and work at the Cerulean Gym until the value of the badges she had stolen evened out. But who could say what the value of a badge was? They weren't sold, the materials that comprised them weren't disclosed, and a close kept secret was that they actually had amplifying qualities. Because of how she had been brought up she knew full well what the properties of the badges were and why they were important.

What the badges represented were priceless in actuality, especially the ones worn personally by selected Gym Leaders such as the one around Misty's neck, and Janine had stolen quite a few… including Misty's last personal badge that she herself wore. Simply having a badge enhanced the power of the Pokémon owned by the trainer with each respective badge there was in the Kanto region. This was to say nothing of the actual Gym Leader's badge itself, which was why taking Misty's badge was the primary objective of her mission to steal from Cerulean Gym.

In theory, she could be kept to work until Misty chose to let her go. _If_ she ever chose to let her go.

Before a decision could be made, Misty walked up to her and held out her hand, "I want your word that you'll go through with the terms if you lose. From a Gym Leader to the daughter of another. Even though your dad isn't really the most trustable leader out of the eight in Kanto his word must mean something."

Staring at the hand being offered to her, Janine had to make a decision.

She could risk her freedom for a substantial but still largely unimportant sum of money, or decline and live off of the pittance that she had along with the small amount of money that Naruto still had leftover from what he had earned in Pewter City along with having her valor tarnished by walking away from such a challenge.

Well when subjected to that kind of a choice it wasn't much of one to her.

Janine's hand shot out and grasped Misty's, agreeing to the terms of the bet. Hey, she had risked her life for less beneficial things in the past. At least this was for money and at least the end result of defeat wouldn't be death. She'd adhere to the stipulations if Naruto lost the battle, because the two things that Janine took great pride in happened to be her word as bond and her courage… also money.

XxX

(Cerulean City – Pokémon Center)

"You travel very quickly Naruto." Professor Oak told Naruto over a video phone that had been set up for users of the Pokémon Center's services, "It's only been two weeks since you first left Pallet Town. You made it right through Viridian Forest with no problems. Even Blue has just now gotten himself to Pewter City."

Naruto laughed sheepishly at the compliment, "Yeah, no sweat." If 'no sweat' involved the copious amounts of sweating that he did while being pursued by a horde of Beedrill for hours then yes, no sweat indeed, "I've seen a ton of Pokémon since I left. You got the ones I sent you back this morning that I caught didn't you?"

"Yes I did Naruto." Oak confirmed before taking on a studious pondering look, "But I do have to wonder… you only have three Pokémon in your party at my count when you can carry six at once. Why decline to keep some of the ones that you captured in exchange for just carrying around your Growlithe, Shellder, and Tyrogue?"

A shrug came from Naruto before he just said what came to mind as to his reasoning, "I don't want to carry any Pokémon with me just to fill space. In Konoha a teammate is someone you're supposed to have chemistry with, someone that you can bond with and want to lay down your own life for. That means something to me. I guess it's something that I take really seriously. So if I don't feel that kind of easy connection with the other ones I don't want to put them in danger like that by making them come with me."

At this point he honestly felt like he could and would put his own body at risk for the sake of his Pokémon. When Hogohei and Ranbouen battled Brock he spent the bulk of the battle bouncing on his toes due to wanting to get himself involved. And he and Fukigenko had shared quite a bit of bonding time over the last few days. The little Tyrogue's desire to train and fight to gain experience was infectious, and when they couldn't find an opponent for him to train against they had taken to sparring against one another.

The trio of strange creatures had won him over in their own ways. It wasn't something he could replicate just by catching and trying to use any old Pokémon from the fields. Something didn't feel right about it.

"That may put you at a marked disadvantage if you choose to partake in the Gym Leader Challenge to gain badges." Oak warned him despite the fact that he understood Naruto's view on comradeship. It sounded very familiar. So Naruto was indeed from the same village as Minato. His thoughts on Naruto being Minato's son were getting to be stronger and stronger, "Eventually you may come up against a Gym Leader that uses a type that would require a certain kind of Pokémon to make the battle easier."

"Then I'll find a way to beat 'em with what I have, dattebayo." Naruto said determinedly, "It won't be the first time that someone counted me out because I didn't match up well against someone or something I had to fight. I'm used to it by now."

"Understood." A smile came across Oak's face. What a simple yet charming approach to raising one's Pokémon. Blue's would have been to find the strongest he could and make them even better, something he found hard to break his grandson of, but until he was proven that this method was wrong he would keep doing it, 'But Naruto seems like the type that even if he's knocked down with his approach and view he'll stand by it until the end.'

"Enough about me." Naruto said, grinning widely into the camera of the video phone, "How have things been going since I left old man?" He had hoped that Jiraiya might have landed there and come to Professor Oak before setting out to search for him, but that wasn't what Oak came with first.

"It's been terrible!" Oak exclaimed, dramatic tears bursting from his eyes, "Not long after you and Blue set out, someone snuck into the lab and stole my last available Pokédex and a Squirtle I had in its Poke Ball! I was in the lab, but something put me right to sleep!"

"Stole a Squirtle and a Pokédex?" Naruto asked with a twitching eye as he recalled his most recent run-in yesterday, "…I think I ran into someone like that… and she had a Squirtle. I didn't know she'd stolen it though. Sorry I couldn't get either of them back. I thought you or someone else gave the Pokédex to her and she just turned out to be rotten."

A frown crossed Oak's face as he stopped the dramatic crying in exchange for speaking normally as if nothing had happened at all, "It's alright, you couldn't have known. If you get the chance though, tell the girl to come back to Pallet Town. I'd like to speak with her."

Naruto gave the man a dry look through the camera, "Yeah… I don't think that'll work."

If Oak wanted it done that badly he'd have better luck just tying her up and dragging her back kicking and screaming. If he hadn't kicked her ass and gotten his goods back yesterday he might have been inclined to do so himself. But in the end he had won, he had no ill will against a girl he was never going to see again.

"Oh well…" Professor Oak said, heaving a big sigh, "Well good luck, and until the next time you call to show me how your Pokédex is coming along this is goodbye for now Naruto."

Naruto nodded, but before the call could be ended Naruto remembered something and exclaimed loudly enough to stop Oak from hitting the button to end the conversation. He also disturbed every living creature in the Pokémon Center, but that was something else entirely, "Wait! If you see a big older guy with white hair anywhere in Pallet Town, that's my sensei Jiraiya. Could you tell him what I'm doing or where I am if you see him?"

Oak filed away the fact that Naruto called the man 'Jiraiya' much like someone else from the exact same place he knew once did and smiled at Naruto, "Of course. You'll have to check in every time you go somewhere new though or I won't be able to tell him anything." A series of rapid nods came from Naruto, getting the professor to chuckle, "Very well then. If I see a man like that I'll pass along the fact that you're waiting for him somewhere."

And with that, the conversation ended.

"Wow you know Professor Oak? That's cool."

Naruto turned around to see Janine's face very close to his from looking over his shoulder moments before. Apparently Naruto jolting out of his seat in fright put a huge grin on her face as Naruto tried to play it off as if she hadn't startled him, "Ah, so did you have a good walk?" That was lame.

An amused eyebrow rose on Janine's face at Naruto's attempt to be casual, but she just let it slide for now. There were more important things afoot, and she could leave the Professor Oak thing until later, "So you ready to get into a fight today or what?" There was a lost look on his face until she elaborated further, "Gym battle."

"Oh!" Naruto said, he had just been thinking about that earlier as a matter of fact, "Yeah! I'm definitely ready. Just point 'em out."

A sigh of relief was breathed from Janine. She didn't even have to tell him that she had placed a very high stakes bet on him, nor would she. First of all there was a chance he would take offense to it, and second of all in the instance that he really cared about her fate in case he lost it would do nothing but throw him off of his game. That wouldn't help at all, throwing that kind of pressure on his shoulders.

So she'd just let Naruto do as he usually had. He could win. For as silly as he seemed to be the rest of the time, once a battle began or there was a need to get serious he seemed to be very reliable.

XxX

(Cerulean Gym)

Well the building was markedly different than the one he had seen in Pewter City. Cerulean Gym bore a striking resemblance to a carousel with a Pokémon on the front that Naruto had never seen before. Janine told him it was a Dewgong, and he hoped he wouldn't have to fight one because it was bigger than any of the Pokémon he had (even if the mural wasn't to scale… Kami after fighting Onix he hoped it wasn't to scale).

The hallways of the Gym were a dead giveaway to the kind of Pokémon Naruto could expect to see in battle. The walls were an aquarium with all sorts of aquatic Pokémon visible to observers within them.

If the rocks and rough atmosphere of Brock's Gym happened to be meant for rock Pokémon it was quite clear that this one was more acclimated to water Pokémon. Okay. Water Pokémon. So that clearly meant no Ranbouen and that he wouldn't be in possession of any type advantages today. Even if he tried to incorporate the Oddish he had caught that morning it was too beaten up from the fight with Fukigenko to be of use even if it wasn't too weak to be placed in a Gym battle.

Turning to his side as the smell of water was getting stronger, meaning that they were nearing the main room of the Gym, Naruto noticed that Janine seemed more on edge than he was, "Hey, are you alright?" She almost jumped when he suddenly spoke to her, "You've been really quiet." Normally Janine would be almost as hard to shut up as Naruto was… mostly because she'd be getting him to try to shut up and someone once said that fighting fire with fire was the best method.

"Me? Oh, I'm fine." Janine replied in an unconvincing manner, diverting Naruto's attention towards a pair of doors that led to the main Gym room, "Here we go. Look alive Naruto, and don't take this girl lightly okay?"

The doors were pushed open to reveal an open room with a very large swimming pool and multiple platforms on the water. Once the doors opened up, it seemed like the underlings of the gym, who were all in the water swimming with the Pokémon they were training, all noticed both Naruto and Janine and climbed out of the water, recalling their Pokémon.

"Alright." Naruto said, cracking his knuckles as he stepped in, "It didn't happen in Brock's Gym, but the way I see it these Gyms are like dojos or something. So do I have to beat the crap out of a bunch of you first to get to the leader?" He asked with a feral looking grin.

No one stepped forward to fight, but all eyes turned to the far end of the water field to a single girl that was sitting on the edge of the pool with her legs set in the water.

"So you're my challenger?" It was a rather pretty girl Naruto's age with orange hair in a side ponytail wearing a red and white two-piece bathing suit, "I knew you were coming, so it wasn't really a big surprise. I hope you came prepared."

Walking to his edge of the pool, Naruto pointed his arm and his fist out at his would-be opponent in a challenging manner, "Yeah, I'm here to battle. The name's Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato!"

"…The what of where?"

Upon hearing one of the bystanders say the thing that everyone else in the building had been thinking, Naruto's head sank forward and he let out a deep sigh, 'I'm never gonna get used to that am I? I keep thinking I'll get used to that, but I never do.'

"Right… well my name is Misty." The girl said, pointing to herself and fixing Naruto with a confident smile, "World famous beauty and the Gym Leader of the Cerulean City Gym." She noticed Janine standing behind Naruto making a loudmouthed puppet gesture with one of her hands and fixed the kunoichi with a glare that got her to pull her eyelid down in return.

Danger senses went off in Naruto's head but they didn't seem to be directed at him in particular. Turning around to the only nearest person standing by him, Janine quickly stopped making faces at Misty and gave Naruto an innocent look, "What? Go get her Naruto. You can do it."

"You'd better hope he can do it." Misty said, still fuming at Janine's attempt to antagonize her before she calmed back down. Naruto was not the source of her resentment, he was just the representative of the actual source, "Alright kid, before you fight me, what's your policy on Pokémon?" In response, Naruto tilted his head to the side quizzically, "*sigh* I mean, how do you go about raising them, battling them, treating them. What's your goal?"

And that was actually a good question that Naruto couldn't outright answer. Other than his mission what was the point of him being there? To train? Yeah, to train himself. But that wasn't any kind of answer about Pokémon. So all Naruto could really do was shrug, "I don't know… I'm just training."

A disappointed look came over Misty's face at Naruto's response, "Well if you don't even know that, you'll never beat me. If you've got no idea who you are as a trainer what's the use?" But she'd show him that by defeating him right then and there, "We can only use two Pokémon each, one at a time. Pokémon can be switched out at any time during the battle. You ready sweetie?"

"I'll 'sweetie' you." Naruto growled, reaching into his supply pouch and pulling out a Poke Ball that he forced to expand in his hand. Who said he had to take any kind of concrete approach when it came to Pokémon? The more he thought about it, he already knew what it was, "My approach, it's like my nindo. I'll never go back on my word and I'll never quit. I'll train Pokémon the way I want, I'll catch the Pokémon I want, and I don't care what anyone else thinks about it! Go Hogohei!"

Letting his Poke Ball fly, the red energy released from it beamed into the water and released Naruto's Shellder.

A bit of confidence wormed its way into Janine's heart at seeing Naruto start off with a water Pokémon in a water field against a water-based trainer, 'Even with the three he has he's not fool enough to put his Growlithe into a situation like this. That's good. For someone new at Pokémon he sure picks this up fast.'

"So you actually have a water Pokémon?" Misty observed as she held up a Poke Ball of her own, "Okay. But just in case you haven't picked up on it, this is a Pokémon Gym for water types. You aren't just going to walk in here and beat me at my own game! Show him Staryu!"

From the Poke Ball came a brown star-shaped Pokémon with a red jewel-looking core in the middle of its body held in place by a gold piece, standing on one of the platforms in the water, "Huh!" The Pokémon grunted aloud.

A freaky starfish Pokémon. Okay, cool. Naruto could roll with that.

He hoped Misty didn't mind if he started things off. He was impatient like that, "Ice Shard!" Naruto commanded quickly, as Hogohei's open shell began firing pieces of ice out at the Staryu of Misty's.

"You know what to do Staryu! Water Gun!" In response to Misty's call, the Star Shape Pokémon dove into the water and avoided the pieces of ice that had been shot at it before popping back up and firing a spray of water from its top tip at Hogohei, hitting the Shellder and knocking it back in the water, "A little bit of advice. When you're battling a water Pokémon against a water Pokémon you really don't want to use moves like that sweetie. This was your only freebie."

"Ugh." Naruto grunted at being patronized, "Enough with the sweetie already damn it! How about this then? Hogohei, give it a Supersonic!"

Hogohei dove underneath the water and released a loud pulse of sound underneath the waves that managed to reach Misty's Staryu. Its bright red core faded out for a second before lighting up again to show that the attack had actually affected it and had managed to confuse it.

Staryu surfaced and began swimming around confoundedly much to Misty's chagrin, "Staryu snap out of it!" She ordered with quite a bit of alarm in her voice.

Knowing an opening when he saw one, Naruto was quick to take advantage of such, "Hogohei, use Tackle!" From beneath the water, the shelled Pokémon swam up and smashed into Misty's Staryu, knocking it into the air.

"Staryu use Rapid Spin!"

While in the air, Staryu's confused state faded and it heeded its trainer's order. It began spinning around rapidly, looking something like a shuriken as its flight pattern shifted, sending it flying at Hogohei, tearing across the surface of the water quickly.

It was like a real shuriken had been thrown, and it was accurate enough to hit Naruto's Shellder, "Damn it! Hogohei!" Naruto exclaimed at watching his Pokémon take another hit that sent him skipping across the surface of the pool like a stone.

Misty decided not to let this opportunity slide by and opted to double up on her offense as long as she had the opportunity, "Don't let up Staryu! Hit his Shellder with your own Tackle!" This time, Staryu went flat on the surface of the water and started spinning like a disk towards Hogohei.

As Hogohei's body still skipped across the top of the water, Naruto opted to protect his Pokémon from two potential avenues of damage with a defensive move, "Withdraw before you hit the concrete!" He wasn't even worried about Staryu's tackle in comparison to the possibility of watching his Pokémon hit a concrete wall. Even if it didn't injure the shell, the little fellow inside would definitely feel the pain if measures weren't taken.

But this served two purposes.

Misty's Staryu tackled the shell that was closed tight and bounced off of it into the air, but this also kept Hogohei from bouncing and bouncing his way out of the pool against the wall. It instead knocked the Bivalve Pokémon back into the water where he quickly resurfaced/

"You can't miss him! Hit a Swift!" With Naruto's next command, Hogohei released a barrage of stars from his open shell that honed in on the intended target of Staryu and blasted it up into the air, smashing the genderless star Pokémon right into the ceiling of the Gym.

Hogohei's attack ended and Staryu fell right down from the ceiling, smacking the pool flat and submerging only to come back up with its top exposed and its core glowing at a weaker rate than before.

With an absolutely stunned look on her face, Misty witnessed Naruto somehow turn that round around entirely and manage to find a way to defeat her when she seemed to have things well in hand, 'One mistake. I made one mistake and that was all it took?' It seemed that from the way Naruto reacted he himself hadn't realized how improbable that comeback was. From the jaws of defeat, "Staryu return."

Misty called her defeated Pokémon back into its ball and pondered her next Pokémon, 'He could barely handle Staryu. So let's see how he does with the evolved version.'

Watching Naruto defeat Misty's Staryu allowed Janine to release a breath that she had been holding for most of that battle. If Naruto had gone down one in the hole she'd have been chewing on her nails, but he had been provided a bit of a cushion by virtue of winning the first battle, 'Come on Naruto, you've got this. You're up.'

In the meantime, Hogohei had swam back towards Naruto as the young blonde teen stooped down by him to speak, "Hey, are you good to go for the next round? Do you want me to switch you out?" He got a weak burst of water to the face for his trouble that ended with Naruto giving a deadpan look to the Pokémon before he spat what water had gone into his mouth back at Hogohei in a similarly weak manner, "You could have just said no."

Since that was settled, Naruto and Hogohei prepared for the next battle, and by then Misty had selected her next Pokémon that she planned to use, tossing the Poke Ball of which in the air with a smirk on her face.

"Now then…" Misty stopped tossing the Poke Ball in exchange for throwing it out to release her next selection, "Let's see what you've really got! Go Starmie!"

This time the star shaped Pokémon was purple in color when it came to its main body. A second star was behind the front of its body and its red, jewel-looking core was surrounded by a gold formation. It was like a way more beefed up version of Staryu. The noise it made even sounded like an airier version of Staryu's cry.

"If you think this is going to go anything like the first battle you're sorely mistaken." Misty commented before pointing at Hogohei, "Swift!"

"Swift!" Naruto ordered in return.

Both Pokémon fired stars at each other that did not miss their marks, blasting both of them with pinpoint accuracy from the respective attacks. Trading fire like that would have been a decent idea with Hogohei's heightened defenses over Misty's Starmie, but Hogohei was already smarting from his previous battle with Staryu. And there was also a pretty nasty little thing that Starmie had going for it.

Despite taking a clean hit from Naruto's Shellder, the uttering of one command from Misty seemed to turn the battle on its head, "Starmie use Recover." The look of success on her face seemed to grow when the battle damage that Starmie had taken from Swift seemed to vanish without a trace, "There. That's better."

Janine shook her head with wide eyes at bearing witness to that, "Oh… this is so not good. No, no, no… that's not good at all."

"They can do that?" Naruto asked the kunoichi in return, "There are Pokémon that can just shrug that kind of thing off?" That was a bit disconcerting; a Pokémon with instant regenerative capabilities. And Hogohei wasn't looking too hale and hearty right then. He was done. Anymore and he had no idea how hurt Hogohei would be.

From behind Naruto's back, Janine nodded and set a hand on his shoulder, "You're gonna have to hammer that thing if you want to beat it. If Misty wanted to she-."

"Hey!" Misty called out across the field abruptly, interrupting Janine and Naruto's little informative powwow, "I said you couldn't help him. That means you can't give him advice either. You're breaching our terms. That would mean you lose."

"Oh come on!" Janine replied, "He barely knows anything about Pokémon, he's just really good at fighting!" So Naruto was just going to have to stumble through the dark and she was supposed to hope that he found the light on the other side? Her freedom was on the line here.

Maybe she needed to tone down her little fixation with money? Because her freedom was not worth 47000 yen.

Still, Misty was not budging on this point, "You knew the rules of the bet when we made it. You can't change the way things are halfway through the battle."

"What bet?" Naruto asked curiously, turning around to give a pointed look at Janine, "What did you do?" He queried, with a warning screaming out in his head, 'Damn it I knew I couldn't trust her! She's gonna screw me over! I know it!'

Eventually that look started wearing on her and Janine broke down. They were there, and if she didn't tell him there was a chance he'd just get fed up and surrender outright, dooming her regardless, "Okay, I didn't tell you because I didn't want it to mess with your head while you were battling if it actually mattered to you. I made a bet with Misty that if you could win we'd get enough money to be set for quite a while. But if you lose I have to work for her for as long as she wants, doing anything."

Just her? Nothing to do with him? That was kind of hard to believe, "And what about me?" There would have to definitely be something that Naruto would wind up sacrificing in case he lost, "What happens to me if I lose?"

Janine let out a humorless laugh with a nervous smile on her face, "Nothing. Nothing happens to you at all. You just… walk. I get stuck here and you can just keep going and leave. This is my bet."

A wide-eyed Naruto just stared dumbly at Janine before turning back towards the pool where he saw his defeated Shellder still laying in the water. He wordlessly called Hogohei back into his Poke Ball and placed it back in his supply pouch as he started thinking heavily.

'She bet on me?' Not only did she bet on him, she staked her outright freedom on him winning.

Janine was kind of bothersome at times, but there was always the possibility that she felt the same way about him. As a matter of fact he was sure that were it not for the fact that she already knew he could beat her they'd have been fighting very often for the better part of the week they had been travelling together. She hadn't done anything to validate any suspicions of her since after their little fight outside of Pewter City. Daresay she was a good girl… other than the sneaky nature she possessed and the overstated love of money.

Did she actually believe in him that much though? This was a huge situation. If she kept her word, and from the look on her face she was most certainly going to from the nerves that clearly showed, if he lost she was on indentured servant status for the foreseeable future.

"Why'd you bet on me?"

The abrupt questioning from Naruto got Janine to blink at him owlishly as she couldn't see his face, instead only able to see the back of his head and the dull red spiral mark on the back of his orange shirt, "Huh? What'd you say?"

Naruto simply repeated his statement and added more to it, "Why'd you bet on me? It's not like we're really friends, right? I can tell you two don't like each other, so I'm not asking why you want the other side to lose or something like that, but I just want to know why you chose _me_."

"Alright look." Janine said, sighing as she didn't know quite how to word her answer, "You're weird." Naruto almost lost his footing and fell into the water at the bluntness of her statement, "Really weird. I personally think you're stone cold crazy. But there's something about you… that makes me want to see you win. Even though you beat me, I can't bring myself to want to see you lose or get hurt. Like with what happened yesterday with that Green girl, when you finished learning your new technique."

In some ways Janine actually seemed just as excited as he was when he had finished learning the Chakra Chains jutsu. Though that might have been because it let her help save him from possibly drowning or being washed out to sea. And when they finally caught up to Green and he defeated her they seemed to have a moment of camaraderie all the way back to Cerulean City.

"This is possible. You can win." Janine stated firmly, giving Naruto a serious look, "You know enough about your Pokémon, and you're good enough at fighting in general that you can beat Misty, even if you're still new to battling Pokémon. So don't even think about me. You were doing just fine before you knew anything about this."

He couldn't do that now.

Naruto already knew about the bet. And thinking about failing and letting her down made his blood boil. Because for some reason she was willing to count on him, and the last time someone had counted on him to fulfill something important he had let her down as well. Compared to that, if he failed here then his will meant absolutely nothing.

"Okay… then I promise that I'll win this battle." Naruto said matter-of-factly, as if he had already borne witness to the end of the battle and was merely recanting historical fact. The cavalier method of declaring such made everyone in the Gym, including his opponent Misty and his travelling companion Janine look at him as if he had a few screws loose, "Come on Fukigenko! Win this one for Janine!"

With a throw of his Poke Ball, out came Naruto's Tyrogue, standing on one of the platforms strewn throughout the pool. He tried to look all cool with his arms crossed over his chest, but he eventually held his arms out to maintain his balance on the swaying platform.

If he knew curse words he'd probably have been using them on Naruto right then. His unintelligible muttering and grunting could have been construed as such though, "Reh! Regah!"

But a fight was a fight, and Naruto was giving him one against the Starmie that he could clearly see.

On the other side of the pool, Misty was wondering what Naruto's mental malfunction was, "Are you kidding me? You're using a fighting-type Pokémon in here, and a baby at that? Don't you have anything else to fight me with? You should have caught some more Pokémon before coming here kid."

"I did!" Naruto shouted back angrily, "But I'll use the Pokémon that I want to! I don't give a damn what you think about it! Fukigenko can kick your Starmie's ass and I know it!" Hearing that Naruto had such a high amount of faith in him, Fukigenko smirked and nodded in agreement.

Well he did have a point. As the challenger he had the right to use whatever Pokémon he wanted. It wasn't her call to make Naruto's pick on what she got to fight against. If it was a trainer that she was certain had more experience under his belt she wouldn't have been sounding so preachy, "Alright. In that case, Starmie, Rapid Spin!"

"Again?" Naruto involuntarily squawked as the purple double-star looking Pokémon tore across the surface of the water looking like a buzzsaw, even faster than Staryu from the previous battle, "Crap! Fukigenko, switch to another platform!"

The little Tyrogue did as instructed and leapt to a different piece of solid matter in the water as Starmie's attack missed, pushing the previous platform down like a button. If Fukigenko had remained on that platform he would have been knocked in the water even if the attack had still missed him in the end.

Misty's Starmie stopped its attack and took its place on top of another platform. Okay, so his Tyrogue dodged one attack. It just meant that he didn't slack when it came to keeping his Pokémon in shape. Things were still well in hand for her. She would see any attack coming from that thing from a mile away, "It can't just keep dodging forever. Eventually it'll slip up. Bubblebeam!"

At an absurd rate, Starmie shot a straight and focused ray of bubbles out at Fukigenko. Unlike a normal Bubble attack, there were far more, they were faster, and they were focused.

Fukigenko grit his teeth in exertion and grabbed the end of the platform before rocking his body back hard enough to pull it up to use like a shield that protected him from the bubbles that the impact of them bursting could be felt all over the Gym.

To be honest though, Naruto was very impressed by his little friend's maneuver to protect himself. And it gave him a rather unconventional opening to use, "Fukigenko, use Strength and kick that stupid thing off at Starmie!"

"What?" Misty couldn't believe that he was serious. But Fukigenko's body glowed white and he sprang off of his upright platform with a rather graceful backflip… but not without using the temporary boost of raw power to kick the platform across the surface of the water right at Starmie who was standing one of its own. It smacked right into Starmie and didn't stop there, driving it back and flying until it slammed directly into the wall outside of the pool with a resounding and very solid thud, "That's… that's impossible!"

"Is it over? Is it over?" Naruto asked frantically, looking all over the Gym at the stunned people who would not give him an answer, including his companion Janine, "I didn't hear anyone call it. Are we done? No? Okay! Tackle!"

"Reh!" Fukigenko jumped from platform to platform quickly until it reached the poolside and then charged the wall where he slammed his entire body into the platform that was stuck against the wall with a smack.

The platform then fell from the wall and revealed Starmie's body again, only now its glowing red core was flashing dully. It fell facedown onto the ground much to the surprise of everyone in attendance and the trainer of the defeated Starmie, "No way… it took two moves?"

"Two _clean_ moves!" Janine reiterated gleefully in return. And it was true. Fukigenko had landed the most precise and punishing moves of the battle bar none, "Try using Recover after that! Naruto's Tyrogue squashed your Starmie against that wall like a pancake! Naruto wins!"

"Whoo!" Naruto hooted before further shocking people when he ran onto the surface of the water to reach Fukigenko where he was at a different portion of the poolside to pick the little fighting Pokémon up in a big hug, "I knew you could do it!"

Misty's jaw would have been on the floor if it were physically possible from a standing position, "Two attacks… but I've never seen anyone fight like that using Pokémon in my life." It was so indirect, but he absolutely punished her Starmie. Not only did his style of attack somehow deal more damage than if he had just used them normally, the way he strung them together kept her from using Recover, which she was going to do after his clearly punishing Strength attack.

Janine appeared at her side and gave her a few hearty pats on the back with a chipper grin on her face, "I'd let you call it a miracle, but that would mean that I didn't know this was going to happen. What'd I say?" She held out her hand expectantly, "Come on. Money, badge, and information please. In that order."

"Did he just run on the-?" Misty started to say before shrugging it off. This entire day was messing with her head for sure, "Ugh… fine. He wins." Janine's grin didn't fade, eliciting a sigh from her, "…Which means you win… damn it."

She still did not care for Janine.

XxX

(That Evening – Cerulean City Pokémon Center)

"You know…" Janine started to say as both she and Naruto sat around a lounge area on a set of couches, "Keeping those things in your pocket or pouch isn't really safe. I can hold onto them for you if you want me to." From her position laying down on her back she tilted her head over the arm of the couch she was in to get a glimpse of Naruto giving her a deadpan look, "Oh come on. I won't take 'em from you."

"I know that." Naruto said, holding up his badges for her to see before they seemed to vanish with a slight of hand that made him grin at its execution, "But don't worry about it. They're somewhere safe." With that he decided to change the topic, "So was that bet you made really only worth 47000 yen? You almost ended up being Misty's personal ninja for life."

"Yeah…" Janine said before sighing wistfully and holding herself, "But it's soooo much better than being broke isn't it? Screw selling the Moon Stones here. We can keep them until we get somewhere farther away from Mt. Moon where the profit would be even bigger!"

Naruto leaned comfortably in his seat and gave her a squinted-eye look, "You've got a really weird focus on money." She more or less ignored that statement in favor of choosing to continue thinking about whatever she figured having a ton of money would do for her, "So I saw you and Misty talking after the battle was over right before we left. What were you talking about?"

At that, Janine stopped her playing around and thought hard about what she had been told by Misty as a result of Naruto's victory in accordance with their wager.

"_There are some strange things going on down around Vermillion City. I heard about a lot of Pokémon going missing around there. And the Gym Leader isn't being very helpful if you know what I mean. I don't know but I thought it might sound familiar as to what happened at first in your city. Maybe you can pick up the trail or something down there… if you want to find your dad again like you said."_

"It was kind of personal Naruto." Janine told him, getting him to grimace and nod, not really wanting to intrude on something that was private. If she didn't tell him it was her own business, "It's not worth getting worked up over." On her end of things though, getting Naruto involved in her own personal issues was just unfair to him, thus she wouldn't do it. She could handle things herself.

Letting the issue of what Janine and Misty were talking about after his battle drop, Naruto reached into his backpack nearby and grabbed a map where he traced out the next town with his finger, "Let's see… Rock Tunnel. A tunnel? Fuck that… unless you live that way." He ventured, getting a shake of the head from Janine, "Okay. Well how about south? There are two cities that way and it looks like it's the middle of Kanto."

'If we go that way we'll probably wind up going to Vermillion City.' Janine thought to herself before giving Naruto her input, "Yeah. That sounds good. I live closer towards the south anyway."

"Hm?" Naruto looked over his map trying to pinpoint which city it was, "How far south? I want to know so I can just take you straight there." He looked over from the map and gave the girl a pleading look with puppy-dog eyes, "Please tell me so I can just take you home."

Instead of that, Janine reached her hand out and gave Naruto's cheek a few pats, "Oh Naruto, Naruto, Naruto… I'm not leaving at least until we sell those Moon Stones and I get my cut. We've got to shop around and find the place with the best buyer to make the most profit, so just smile and enjoy my lovely company in the meantime."

"We took the stones from criminals! For free!" Naruto stressed, waving his arms indignantly, "Whatever we make is going to be a profit! Does it really have to be big?"

"You idiot! The difference in the money we make can be in the thousands depending on where we sell."

"I'm a ninja, not an accountant."

"That's why I'm volunteering to be treasurer until further notice. You're lucky you know."

"…I don't feel lucky."

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 5: Cerulean City<span>

After his latest return to Pallet Town to recant Oak with some of his findings on Pokémon that he had seen while out and about trying to gain some capital to fund supplying his ships for a return voyage to Konoha, Minato decided to take one of his underlings with him for a bit if only for the young ninja's benefit instead of his own really. As something of a witness to the things Minato planned on recording for Konoha's archives. 15 year old chunin Shiranui Genma.

Standing in front of Cerulean Gym, Minato held a palm to his face as he stood next to the young man that wore a normal Konoha shinobi outfit that looked like Minato's only Genma's headband was done in a reverse bandanna style that covered his dark brown neck-length hair.

"Minato-senpai, are we really going in there?" Genma asked, a calm look on his face as a senbon sat in his mouth like a toothpick, "I mean I know it's a mission and we're definitely getting paid a ton for this, but…" He gestured forward at the building where multiple yellow blasts of pure destruction were erupting from the roof periodically, "…Yeah I don't think I need to say anything."

"Yes we do." Minato said, dragging his hand down his face before he slapped himself to get himself psyched up, "Because it's the right thing to do before that Pokémon hurts more people than just the trainers that operate out of this Gym." Also because he had already received payment and had taken it back to his comrades in Pallet Town. It was probably already spent, so there was no backing out now. That didn't sound very inspirational though, and he was trying to work on his speeches to underlings for when he tried going for the Hokage seat, "It could destroy the town."

"Hm." Genma said in thought as another blast erupted from the Gym and reduced a nearby building to rubble, "I don't want to fucking go in there."

Minato's eyes widened and he turned towards Genma who was casually observing the slowly being destroyed Gym in front of him, as well as buildings nearby taking hits from the blasts, "Genma… if you actually wanted to go in there to fight a Gyarados I'd take you to get your head examined. Sometimes we have to do things that are scary."

BOOM!

"…This is one of those times."

Genma nodded slowly before shaking his head, "Yeah… I'm not feeling you on this one. Good luck with that."

Well, Minato was really hoping he didn't have to do this, wishing to save it for another time that was vital, but who knew if Genma would wind up being important one day or not. Special techniques were meant to be passed down, and he didn't have a son (yet) so now was a decent time for his trump to kick Genma's ass into gear.

"If you stick with me until I choose to take you back to the ships in Pallet Town I'll teach you Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder God Jutsu)." Minato could have sworn that Genma's head turned towards him so fast his neck almost broke, giving him a look of astonishment as if to ask him, 'Are you really serious?' And yes, Minato was serious, "But you've got to listen to everything I tell you. I guarantee if you learn this technique they'll give you a look for a promotion when we get home."

It took a bit of thinking as Genma weighed the positives and the negatives of risking his life to fight whatever was tearing apart that portion of Cerulean City from the security of a freaking pool in the middle of a massive and sturdy building in exchange for learning Minato's greatest technique. A space-time ninjutsu to boot.

Eventually he sighed and held out his hand, "Give me one of those Poke Ball things in case I get an opening to catch it. Don't let me die please."

A gratefully grinning Minato did just as Genma asked and gave him a pat on the shoulder to instill some confidence, "Oh don't worry about it. Everything is going to be just fine. All you need to know about a Gyarados is that its scales are too hard to stab with a kunai, its fangs can crush boulders, and lastly whatever you do just don't piss it off-."

BOOM!

*ROAR*

"-Don't piss it off anymore than it already is. Now let's do this."

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire).

Hogohei (Shellder)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal).

Fukigenko (Tyrogue)  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Fake Out (Fighting).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Spinarak  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Constrict (Normal), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost).

Grimer  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Zubat  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying).

Venonat  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass).

Misty's Current Pokémon Team (Used during Gym battle)

Staryu  
><span>Attacks:<span> Tackle (Normal), Water Gun (Water), Harden (Normal), Rapid Spin (Normal), Recover (Normal).

Starmie  
><span>Attacks:<span> Rapid Spin (Normal), Water Gun (Water), Recover (Normal), Bubblebeam (Water), Confuse Ray (Psychic), Swift (Normal).

* * *

><p><strong>That's chapter complete.<strong>

**And with my lack of anything to say on this particular day I will simply bid you a fond farewell until the next chapter. Hope you enjoyed. Later.**

**Kenchi out.**


	7. Let the Sparks Fly

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. I challenge Kishimoto to a fiddle contest with the winner taking control of Naruto, and I volunteer to take my turn with the use of a golden fiddle. I done told you before you son-of-a-bitch, I'm the best there ever was!

**Chapter 7: Let the Sparks Fly**

* * *

><p>The pair of Naruto and Janine wound up taking a rather roundabout way to get themselves towards the south as they wished to travel. The gate guard keeping the main path safe from interlopers was something of a royal jerk and wouldn't let the two strange looking teenagers through.<p>

And here Janine wanted to go to Saffron City, the biggest city in the entire country, to try and offload those Moon Stones of theirs. In a metropolis like that they'd have definitely found a buyer that wanted what they had to sell.

After she'd gotten Naruto all excited about it on the way telling him how big the buildings were and how many people there would be. All that work getting him fired up to go for nothing.

But that would have just been a detour anyway. Their real aim lay further south and they just had to shift trails in order to get there. As much of a buzzkill as it was for Naruto to not get to see the massive skyscrapers of Saffron City, Janine was more interested in going to Vermillion City; the directions of Misty stuck in her head about how maybe she could find the whereabouts of her father.

She was going to slap that man across the face and drag him right home… yeah she wished she had the confidence to do that. It was going to be more like reason with and argue to get him to go home, and even then she'd probably fail at it. It was worth a try though.

Still, things could have been far worse. She could have been alone, and in a stroke of irony Naruto was also looking for someone. Waiting would have been the more appropriate term for it however, because he didn't know where this Jiraiya person he kept talking about was. He kept assuring Janine though that 'Ero-sennin' could find him no matter where he was.

Drop him in the middle of a desert somewhere, bury him in a cave on the goddamn moon, and Naruto would swear up and down that this Jiraiya guy would not only find him, he'd find the trail Naruto was travelling, get ahead and stop somewhere _in front_ of that trail, and wait for Naruto to come to him first.

How much of that was hyperbole she was unable to figure because over-exaggeration was not generally a safe thing to be assured of when speaking to Naruto.

Either way, while things hadn't exactly panned out thus far the way she had hoped they would have when she accepted the ill-fated mission to procure fossils for the wealthy client in Viridian City, Janine was nothing if not adaptable. And she was simply going with the flow as they headed towards Vermillion City.

The fact that she was somewhat influencing the current of said flow notwithstanding. It wasn't like Naruto knew where to go otherwise or how to get around. And he was just fine with it.

Seriously. The guy was walking right next to her down a sunny, forested path looking chipper as all get out. He was cool with just about anything, "We've got a great day for this huh?" Naruto asked aloud as he walked, resting his hands behind his head with a grin on his face, "Today's gonna be awesome. I can already tell."

It was like he had five minutes of warm-up time in the morning after waking up and then he just snapped to attention for the rest of the day. All Janine could do was shake her head as she was broken from her thoughts, "It rained all day two days ago… and you said it was going to be an awesome day then too."

"Every day's awesome." Naruto replied, still grinning, "It's awesome just because you wake up that morning."

Well that was agreeable enough.

"Naruto you're still walking around with only three Pokémon." Janine said, trying to make conversation as they walked along, "I saw you catch more so why do you still only keep three?" She held up four miniaturized Poke Balls between the fingers of one of her hands, "Your Growlithe, Shellder, and Tyrogue aren't gonna be able to beat every leader you fight."

"Four."

"Oh." Yeah, that was right. He had four on him now. There was the one he had caught the other day and decided to keep with him, "Well you should still keep in mind that you'll probably want to fill your team of six out sooner rather than later." Janine advised him perceptively, "You can never have too many Pokémon as a trainer you know."

"I want to call bullshit on that, but I don't know enough about Pokémon to dispute it." Naruto said in return holding up his own four filled Poke Balls that he pulled out of his supply pouch. He had been on quite a pleasant journey so far. A few rough patches like the run-ins with Green and Team Rocket aside, he was enjoying himself. And he was actually getting training done; a new way to use his Rasengan in a fiery way and the Chakra Chain jutsu… that seemed like a hell of an improvement to him, "I wonder how these things work."

"You really are from somewhere without any Pokémon." It was pretty hard to believe honestly, even though he said as much. His actions showed that he was unfamiliar with Pokémon, but then he'd fight and that all went out the window, "I can't imagine it."

Still grinning, Naruto's eyes flickered towards the girl as he felt kind of cool at being an anomaly of sorts in her world view. That was what he was there to do, turn heads, "Well we have creatures in the Elemental Nations that we use to fight too. They're animals that we sign blood contracts with bonding us together. Some of them can talk, some of them are bigger than you'd believe, even way bigger than an Onix."

"Wow." If he wasn't lying that was one hell of a thing to talk about. But so far Naruto had never lied to her… or anyone around them really. For a ninja he really was too honest for his own good. The truth was a weapon just like anything else, "Then show me one. I'd like to see it."

This brought a frown to Naruto's face as he dropped his hands from behind his head and neck, "That's the thing. Ever since we came to Kanto, me and Ero-sennin can't summon anything anymore. I try every day to make sure and it never works." This was why he was really hoping Jiraiya showed up soon. It was killing him not knowing why. What if he'd done something wrong?

What was with that look on Janine's face though? That sly-looking smirk of hers didn't sit too well with him.

"That's a likely excuse Naruto. You can summon house-sized toads, but you can't do it for me right now?" Janine said, knowingly extracting a rather displeased look from Naruto that almost made her giggle. It wasn't that she didn't believe him even though she was pretty skeptical, it was more along the lines that calling him out and watching him blow his stack over petty things was funny.

"You just wait… when I figure out what's wrong I'll call a toad the size of a skyscraper. I wonder what your face'll look like then, dattebayo."

It was so good, she had to find a way to record some of it to make a TV show out of. She could probably get it into syndication if she hung out around him enough and got enough footage for enough episodes. At least something for radio.

"I don't know what that last word means. Does dattebayo even mean anything in your country?"

"…Shut up!"

The melodious laughter from Janine rang out all the way down the road as Naruto grumbled about stupid verbal tics at her side.

XxX

(Four Days Later – Vermillion City)

The detour route to Vermillion City took longer than if they had just been allowed to go through the gate to Saffron City first, but they had been barred by the jerk-ass guards and doing illegal things for no good reason wasn't exactly what they wanted. Naruto himself had almost been arrested by that scary Officer Jenny chick back in Pewter City and knew to take borders pretty seriously from his time in the Elemental Nations, and Janine was not going to jail over something inconsequential such as a path on the road.

Then there were the long stops so that Naruto could train himself and his Pokémon in the mornings. While impressive, and while Janine did so with her own Pokémon as well, it bit heavily into travel time. But alas… such was the life of a Pokémon Trainer/professional ninja.

Eventually they made it to the port city though. A city with cobbled streets and homes and other buildings in burnt orange colors for tile and brick. Just the color scheme of most of the town made Naruto like it. Orange. His kind of place to be. Obviously as a port town it smelled like ocean.

It was a nice town, but Naruto was pretty confused about something.

"Janine, what are we supposed to be doing here?" Naruto asked his travelling companion as the two of them waited in the leaves of one of the trees surrounding a very large building emblazoned with lightning bolt emblems and murals of electricity all over it.

"This is Vermillion City's Pokémon Gym Naruto." Janine told him as she continued to observe the building closely, "You know that. You're not illiterate, you can read just fine."

"Yeah, I do know that…" Naruto replied, tapping his fingertips on the branch they were hiding on impatiently, "What I don't know is why I'm not going inside to kick the Gym Leader's ass to take my badge."

"All Gyms are not created equal Naruto." That cryptic answer got Naruto to stare at Janine strangely until she sighed and elaborated, "Okay, you've met two Gym Leaders and fought them so far. Well all of them aren't as cool as Brock or Misty. Leaders can run a gym any way they want, and can make up any rules they want. It's their world in there, almost no regulation as long as they're sanctioned. Some Gym Leaders are totally crazy, others are just outright pricks… and some are both. This guy is both."

She was not going in there unless she had to go in there. No way. No sir. Not a chance. Not only was the leader certifiable and a right jerk, the Gym itself was one for Pokémon of the electric variety. Electric Pokémon were too dangerous for her to play around with.

"More reason to march in there and beat him." Naruto argued quietly. He didn't care if the guy was a jerk. He didn't care if the guy was crazy. It was all good as far as he was concerned. What was life without dealing with a few sociopaths? A safer life, but that wasn't the point, "Who is this guy anyway? And if we're not going in why are we here?" It didn't really make much sense, especially since Naruto told her no more breaking and entering to steal.

"Vermillion City's Gym Leader is named Lt. Surge." Once again showing that she indeed knew very much about the Pokémon Gyms, Janine continued to explain things to Naruto about the man in charge, "He's paranoid and a bit manic. The way he battles isn't the way you've seen from other Gym Leaders at all. People know him for badly injuring the Pokémon of trainers because he has really powerful electric types, he's killed more than a few. He's even hurt trainers pretty bad too during battles, because the best way to end a battle is sometimes to take out the commander."

A wide-eyed Naruto just sat on the branch and listened raptly at some of this information that could save his life until it was clear that Janine was finished, "Wow… you sure do know a lot about this stuff. Why do you? Have you beaten the Gyms before for the badges?" He had waged a few mock battles against Janine since they had been travelling together and she was very good.

A bit of a laugh came from Janine, "It's flattering that you think I'm that strong of a trainer, but I'm really not. My father made sure I knew so much about the Gyms… he's the strong one. He'd dust me in a second if we fought."

Her dad? Cool, "So can I meet him when I take you back home? I want to tell him how much trouble his daughter got me into." Naruto half-joked back to the Kanto kunoichi with a light elbow to jostle her, "Just travelling with you should be a paying mission."

Janine pouted for a moment at Naruto's intended joke before holding back a wistful sigh, "You might meet him. You might not. I'm kind of looking for him now, and I got a bit of a tip that I might be able to pick up his trail in this city. Gyms are a major part of most cities so I thought I'd start here… but it isn't working so far." With that she dropped down from the tree, giving up on her failed stakeout.

After motioning for Naruto to follow her, he dropped down from the tree as well and fell into step next to her, picking a leaf or two out of his hair as they walked off of the Gym property, "You're looking for your dad? You've never talked about anything before."

"Well… he taught me how to be a ninja. And he gave me Spinarak to train with when I was a few years younger." Janine said with a weak smile. She left out that it was mostly so that she could serve under him when it came time for his boss's plans to be put in action. It was never really her choice, and eventually she got tired of being groomed to be the underling of a criminal and left. Doing so to go steal for herself was rather counterproductive, but that wasn't the point. The point was that it was her choice to do so, "I haven't seen him in a few years though. I don't even know what I'll say or do when or if I find him again."

She jumped when Naruto pat her unexpectedly on the back in an encouraging way, "It'll be alright. Times like that, I think you should go with your gut. Just go with the first thing your head tells you to do when it happens. That's what I'd do." The conversation then came to a close when Naruto's Poke Ball popped open without warning and his Tyrogue stood in front of him with his arms crossed glaring at Naruto, "Fukigenko?"

Around its torso like a sash was a blue bandanna with a black leaf insignia drawn on it, meant to look a bit like the headbands given to Academy graduates in his village. In the last town Naruto had bought one for each of his Pokémon to signify that they belonged to a Konoha ninja, even if no one knew what that meant. He knew, and that was all that mattered.

"Reh!" Fukigenko stomped his foot on the ground and pointed at Naruto intently before putting his dukes up. He wanted to fight? There?

Naruto just gave his little fighting Pokémon a dry look, "Really? We just fought yesterday. Are you telling me you want to go again in the middle of town?" He must have gotten impatient after the big bait-and-switch with the Gym.

"They like training hard every day." Janine defended on Fukigenko's behalf, "I don't see why this couldn't wait though…" She grumbled in return. It was the biggest spoiled brat out of Naruto's current Pokémon team only instead of wanting material possessions it always wanted to fight.

And the thing about it was that he was getting stronger, because Naruto had to fight harder and harder to satisfy its need to train.

Naruto dragged a palm down his face before fixing Fukigenko with a stern gaze, "Look, we can't fight every single day. I have to train myself, and work on my own jutsu so that I can blow Ero-sennin away when I see him again. And this isn't the place for it!" He shouted, pointing around at the people that were staring as they walked past at the weird kid in orange and his Pokémon.

It looked for a moment that Fukigenko was listening to what Naruto was saying and seemed like he was going to settle down and save it for later. Then he launched at Naruto and started attacking him, the way that their spars usually went.

"Goddamn it Fuki!" Naruto yelled as he started defending himself. It was getting easier to see the little Pokémon make his moves and it was getting easier for him to defend using only his own taijutsu skills. On the other hand, Fukigenko was getting more and more aggressive and confident against his trainer as it was getting better and better at fighting him.

Janine rolled her eyes at the growing spectacle and threw out a Poke Ball of her own, "Venonat, use Confusion and help Naruto stop his Tyrogue." A little round bug covered in purple fur with stubby feet and paws, a pair of antennae, and red compound eyes emerged from the Poke Ball and had a blue glow take over its eyes.

As this happened, the unaware Tyrogue glowed blue as well before falling face-first onto the ground hard, ending the scuffle with Naruto as Naruto used that opening to return him to his Poke Ball.

Naruto grunted a bit as he placed the Poke Ball back into his supply pouch, "Man, Fuki's turning into a real jackass." He commented as Janine gave her Venonat a thankful hug for being helpful just now, "Ranbouen and Hogohei are cool. Even Sazakumoru (Little Gloomy) is cool, and I just caught her."

As Janine continued to hug her furry little poison Pokémon, getting her fill of her most recently captured new Pokémon, she spoke up, "Maybe he's getting too much battle experience too fast? Those things can be kind of hard to raise. They're baby Pokémon, and that means that they're learning how to behave from their masters." She grinned from where she had set her chin on her Venonat's head, "Maybe that's what he's doing? Learning how to be a jackass from another jackass."

"_You're_ a jackass. A greedy jackass."

"At least my Pokémon don't try to beat me up like yours do."

"But they can't beat me up, because I'm awesome!"

"You're not that awesome!"

The two were interrupted from their mounting argument by a man shorter than they were, wearing a suit and a bowler hat along with sunglasses, a cane, and a full beard, "Excuse me." He stopped them just as the two of them started to angrily butt heads over the top of Janine's Venonat. Both turned towards the small man curiously as to who would move forward to interrupt them, "Is that your Venonat by chance young lady?"

Both Naruto and Janine shared a look before backing away from each other as the girl held her Pokémon up in her arms, "Yeah. Venonat is mine. I caught her about a week ago. She's so fuzzy and cute, right?" Naruto rolled his eyes at the way Janine gushed over the purple fuzzball and got a kick to the shin for his trouble that almost started their argument all over again until the Venonat was taken right out of Janine's arms, "Hey!"

"It's kept in such good shape." The man commented as it looked Janine's Venonat over on all sides, "You know how to care for your Pokémon very well."

A grinning Janine silently accepted the praise from the man while Naruto just looked bored at her side, digging in his ear and flicking what he found off to the side, "Yeah… who are you anyway old man?"

"He's someone that knows a good Pokémon, that's who." Janine stated as she took her Venonat back from the old man. It was nice to get some appreciation for her Pokémon because a lot of people didn't like bug or poison Pokémon, "Venonat's a pretty versatile battler. She's new to my team, but she'll be invaluable when I have to deal with other poison-types because she can learn psychic techniques." She then noticed a displeased look on the old man's face, "Err… what's the matter?"

He shook his head in a chiding fashion, "You force your Pokémon to fight battles?"

"Yeah kinda." Both Naruto and Janine responded in unison, not knowing what the problem was as Janine followed up, "I mean we can't really travel unless we do. I suppose we could, but there's a chance we'd get ourselves killed by wild Pokémon."

"You." Naruto corrected confusingly, pointing directly at Janine, "There's a chance _you'd_ get killed by wild Pokémon. I'd be fine." Janine's mini-glare at his words felt a little bit like victory as far as Naruto was concerned, "What's wrong with using Pokémon to battle?" He asked earnestly.

Once again, the man shook his head before grabbing both Naruto and Janine by the arm to drag them along with him, "Come with me, come with me." He said as if that would explain everything, "All you young people care about is having your Pokémon battle. There's something you need to see."

XxX

They weren't taken too far from the Vermillion City Gym to another building that was more like a regular house. A clubhouse of sorts. It was decorated a bit like a Gym, only with a single Pikachu mural that covered the whole thing.

"I don't want to go in there. I'm scared." Naruto said abruptly as both he and his fellow ninja companion had been standing out front for a few minutes at this point.

In return he received a strange look from Janine who gestured towards the clubhouse, "What? What are you scared of? It's just a house. It's a weird looking house, but it's still just a house. That old man went inside. Go on."

"Why aren't you going first then?" Naruto replied matter-of-factly, something Janine didn't really have an answer to once she stopped to think about it. And once she did stop to think about it, Naruto shoved her forward through the front door before she could dig her feet into the ground.

Upon entering, the eyes of many middle-aged people rested on them. Many of them were wearing t-shirts with their favorite Pokémon on them, talking about and showing pictures of their favorite Pokémon. It was a fan club.

"Crap." Naruto muttered under his breath before he shifted his position to begin dragging Janine back out the door, "Back up, back up, back up."

"As Chairman I'd like to welcome you to the Pokémon Fan Club!" Their progress out was stopped by the little old man from before standing in the doorway, startling Naruto because he had wondered where he had gone as he hadn't been standing outside with them, "Here lovers of Pokémon can meet up and talk about their favorite Pokémon. They can even show off the ones that they have as well."

As Naruto pat his own chest down to lower his heart rate, Janine looked around at the Pokémon that were out and being fawned over by the club members. It was a lot of unevolved Pokémon. Things like Weedle, Rattata, Sentret, Snubbull… mostly cutesy Pokémon, "Not too many of these Pokémon look that tough." She admitted with a bit of a frown.

The little old Chairman responded, "The Pokémon Fan Club isn't an organization that enjoys battling. None of us particularly force our Pokémon to fight. We find it a bit barbaric. Evolution is just a Pokémon's way of adapting to the rough conditions they find themselves in when they fight."

'That's not really true, but okay…' Janine thought with a dull expression on her face, 'These people can think what they want I guess.'

On the other hand, Naruto wasn't as willing to keep his own thoughts to himself, "I haven't been in Kanto that long, and I don't know that much about Pokémon, but I've seen… things. Things that don't add up to what you just said." Every single Pokémon he had ever seen could have doubled as a solo fighter at least on par with a normal genin, "If you leave a Pokémon alone it'll fight. They have the abilities to fight without ever even being trained."

"Well maybe one day you'll see your Pokémon as friends too precious to direct in battles." The Chairman said in a bit of a patronizing manner to the two youngsters before sighing, "But that brings troubles of its own I have to say." At that, the buzz of the place quieted despondently, "There's an issue of Pokémon being beaten and taken from their trainers. They seem to target those like us, people that don't use their Pokémon to battle so that they have an advantage."

That didn't sit well with either Naruto or Janine. Despite being ninja and understanding the need to take whatever openings they could find in battle, there was a difference between that and attacking innocents as far as they were concerned, "Well it's your lucky day old man." Naruto said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "We can't just let something like this happen when we can do something about it. So we'll do what we can. We can get your Pokémon back."

"For a nominal fee of course." Janine added as an afterthought. Naruto elbowed her in the side eliciting a bit of a yelp from her, "Ow! What? We're supposed to do this for free? I'm not a charity worker Naruto!"

The Chairman of the Pokémon Fan Club immediately shook both of their hands frantically, "Of course! We'd pay anything to get back our Pokémon and the Pokémon of others! But what can you two do that the police couldn't?"

"Borderline illegal things." Naruto answered with a shrug. They didn't have any protocol to go by. They could do what they wanted to, "And we don't wear police uniforms so who's gonna know we're investigating anything until it's too late?"

Janine leaned an arm on Naruto's shoulder to show that she too was confident in their chances of pulling such a thing off, "And we're kids. Nobody takes kids seriously until they get beaten by them. Just make sure you have a good reward ready when we come back. We'll handle it."

XxX

(Later that Evening – Vermillion City – Northeast Construction Site)

After accepting the 'mission' from the Pokémon Fan Club, Naruto had wanted to immediately set out looking for clues and hearsay about any suspicious people that may have had something to do with the Pokémon thefts. Janine had assured him though that she already knew something though.

This was news to Naruto, and quite a surprise. How could she have known anything? They had just gotten there on that exact day and they had just heard about the Pokémon thefts a few hours prior. He didn't know that this was exactly what Misty had talked to her about while he had been celebrating his last Gym Leader victory in Cerulean City.

It was the reason that she had been staking out the Gym earlier that afternoon with Naruto.

If the Gym Leader of Vermillion City wasn't up and trying to keep his city safe as a community leader then there was a better than average chance that he was involved in the major misgivings going on around the place.

So she could deduce that he had something to do with the whole thing. That was just lovely. So she'd actually have to fight for real. No sleight of hand or tricks this time.

The construction site was meant to build a storage facility for the Silph Corporation, one of the biggest companies in not just Kanto, but the entire continent. It was a perfect place for it due to the fact that Vermillion City was a place where they could distribute their products out by seafaring commerce.

But it wasn't complete as construction had to be delayed due to budget. There were a few warehouses, but at the front end of the site it was mostly flattened ground with many tough, large boulders in the way that had yet to be pulverized or moved. It was closed off for anyone to enter, but it was also the best place to hide things as the construction company responsible for building the place hadn't been there in months.

Both Naruto and Janine approached the site from a forest sitting just outside, further north, done in order to cover their approach as there weren't even guards watching the front, but they would have been fools to just walk through the front because of that.

"Alright Naruto." Janine said, once again hiding in a tree with Naruto as they overlooked the three completed warehouses and the rest of the to-be constructed site, "There's no better place in Vermillion City to hide something without keeping it on a ship prepared to transport it." She pointed at two large unmarked canvas trucks near the buildings, "Those aren't Silph Co.'s. So they're still here. Let's rock and roll shall we?"

Before she could drop down from the tree, Naruto grabbed her arm and held her in place, "Wait. First I've got some questions to ask you." He said with a thoughtful look on his face. He never chose to ask her anything before because he had expected to have her out of his hair before it ever became an issue. That was starting to manifest itself as very unrealistic because he was probably going to be sticking around her for the long haul, "…You know more than you should about this. Because we didn't even go looking for any clues at all."

"It's complicated."

"Well make it simple so we have time to check this place out." Naruto simply sat there and waited, not letting go of her arm so that she couldn't cut and run. It wasn't that farfetched to think that she would, because he might have in the same situation, "This is suspicious as hell. You know this stuff too easily. What's up?"

This was not the time or the place for this, but Janine figured that Naruto simply didn't care. The quickest way to get him to let go would be to just tell him what he wanted to know… or knee him in his junk. But that wasn't what friends did to friends.

That's right… were they even friends yet?

"You have to make me a promise that you aren't going to hold this against me." Janine said with a steely gaze that almost got him to let go from how stiff it was, "You're going to look at me funny, probably worse, but I don't have anything to do with this."

So serious. She was never that serious before. Even when they fought in Pewter City she was still pretty playful the entire time. All Naruto could do was nod. If she said she wasn't attached with this, then he had to take it at face value as they hadn't been in Vermillion City before then, "I promise. I just want to know."

Janine sighed before looking towards the construction site, "My father, I know what he's doing even though I don't know where he is. He's doing this. He's stealing, hurting people, and taking Pokémon… he's doing it for his boss." She saw Naruto's eyes more or less telling her that he needed to know more, so she graced him with such information, "He works as a very high ranking member of Team Rocket." That got Naruto's blue eyes to go wide, "…And he was trying to train me to work under him, eventually make my way up to being a high ranking member too."

That was enough for Naruto to put the pieces together from there, "So you know all of this stuff about what's happening here because you almost ended up doing it yourself?" Janine nodded with a frown on her face, "…Why didn't you?"

"Because it was never my choice." She replied with a bit of resentment in her voice, "Everything I've ever done; training in the ninja arts, being raised as a trainer, my entire future, I never got a choice in the matter. I was just supposed to be his dutiful little daughter. He had everything set out for me. Well who wants that?" Janine turned her entire body away from him at that point to avoid an accusing stare, "Not me."

But Naruto didn't have an accusing stare directed at her. He couldn't imagine not having any choice in what he was going to do with his life. Granted… in Konoha it was either be a ninja or get a regular job, and he'd be damned if he'd have a regular job… and then the job was glamorized to attract young recruits… but damn it, it was still his choice to be a ninja the whole time.

"It's okay." Naruto said, setting a hand on her shoulder, almost in a similar manner as earlier that day outside of the Gym, "You've got your choice now, and you're here." He then pointed at the gated off warehouses and spoke gently, "Now if Team Rocket is supposed to be in there like I think you're telling me let's go in and kick their asses, and get those Pokémon free." He spoke as gently as he could while simultaneously threatening bodily harm on others.

"And if my father is in there?"

"Well we can kick his ass too, or you can hug him… or not. It's your choice really."

XxX

It wasn't that difficult for the two to get themselves onto the property. Despite dressing like a traffic cone, to Janine's pleasant surprise Naruto wore it well when it came to hiding himself and concealing his movements when necessary. This allowed them to slip past many Pokémon with round metal bodies that hovered off of the ground and had magnet attachments on the sides of their forms; Magnemite. They must have been the standing sentries over the site.

As they reached outside of the warehouses, they took a moment for Janine to sabotage the trucks while Naruto wondered about all of these weird vehicles that Kanto had, 'Why the hell don't we have these in the Elemental Nations?' He thought to himself as she cut lines underneath the transport vehicles, 'Maybe… maybe I can seal one away in a scroll or something. It's not too big for that is it?'

He wanted one very badly. One that worked though, because Janine had just broken those two.

"Okay… let's go." Janine whispered, getting a nod from Naruto as the two of them made their way silently to the sides of two warehouses, "Wanna split up?"

Splitting up didn't sound like such a good idea to Naruto. Getting caught up inside of a warehouse would be bad enough, but if both of them got trapped in separate warehouses… that doubly suck. Better to have to fight their way out together than have to do it apart and find a way to meet up, "Let's just go check one out together. If there are tons of Pokémon in there we're going to need each other's help to get 'em all out right?"

Conceding that point to the sunny blonde, Janine pointed up to the high and small window they were sitting beneath and motioned for Naruto to give her a boost so that she wouldn't have to use a Pokémon yet to assist her. Janine made it in one jump thanks to her own jumping ability and Naruto's throw and opened the window from her hanging point while Naruto simply scaled the wall with the use of his chakra.

She wasn't upset that Naruto probably got a clear look up her skirt when he threw her because she needed his help for a boost while he could just casually saunter up the side of the wall. Nope, not at all.

The both of them crawled through the window meant for ventilation and hung out in the rafters overlooking the warehouse. Naruto glared down angrily at the sight that the two of them caught from their bird's eye view.

All kinds of Pokémon in cages with the black-clad Team Rocket thugs taking stock of them and making sure that they were thoroughly chained within the cramped boxes. Unable to move or go anywhere. Some of them looked malnourished, sick, still injured probably from the battles that it took to capture them in the first place. It was pretty sick to see. Just because they weren't humans… they were still intelligent creatures. Creatures that felt emotion just like them.

"I almost ended up being a part of this too if I hadn't left home a year ago." Janine said to Naruto quietly, "I couldn't imagine doing this to any of my own Pokémon… so why would it be okay to do it to anyone else's."

Naruto's fists tightened harshly from where he and Janine were hiding in the rafters, "I became a ninja to be a hero you know." No she didn't know. That seemed counterproductive to what a ninja was supposed to do… except for that one weird ninja that was famous in Kanto before she was ever born. The one her dad told her stories about… and he was blonde too, go figure, "To make sure that things like this didn't happen on my watch."

"Well let's go then Mr. Hero." Janine said, nudging him with a smile, "I'm sure these Pokémon could definitely use one right now."

A smirk came over Naruto's face and he made a cross hand-seal with his index and middle fingers to call upon his most versatile ninjutsu, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" With that, several versions of Naruto dropped from the ceiling and quickly took out the first few negligent Team Rocket underlings they could reach before heading to the cages to try and find some way to let the Pokémon out.

There were still many Team Rocket members throughout the warehouse that heard the scuffle sounds of their comrades being handily defeated and they didn't feel like meeting the same fate, "What the hell? Stop those orange kids from freeing the Pokémon!"

All sorts of Zubats, Raticates, Drowzees, and Sandshrews were released from their Poke Balls to attack Naruto and his clones, but they fell prey to a nearly invisible spider web set up before they could approach by Janine who lowered herself from the ceiling riding atop a pretty big spider; red bodied with black stripes that had four yellow legs with purple stripes. The evolved form of her Spinarak, "Good work Ariados. Naruto if you would?"

Naruto threw out one of his Poke Balls as he worked with his clones to try and free some of the Pokémon, "Ranbouen, Flame Wheel!" The fire-dog emerged from the ball sporting a blue bandanna around his neck and cloaking himself in fire from his own mouth as he flipped at his entrapped enemies, hitting them and sending fire going all over, burning the web down to boot, "There you go boy!"

Ranbouen let out a happy howl before turning his head to blast a Team Rocket member trying to sneak up on him with Ember. Another member tried to turn the corner of cages with his multiple Poke Balls ready to let loose to battle but Janine's Ariados sent out a web directly from its mouth straightforward that managed to actually stab through the man's throwing arm, forcing him to howl out in pain.

"Whoops." Janine unapologetically said as the man dropped his Poke Balls without calling his Pokémon out, "Watch out. My Ariados can make trap webs from its spinneret, but the webs from its mouth are pretty sharp." There was that specialized training that she stole from Naruto, teaching her Pokémon how to do something specific that was different, "I can use it as an attack."

On his end of things, Naruto was handily dispatching Team Rocket members one-by-one on his own that tried to fight him themselves because he was a kid. Not exactly the wisest course of action even if his clones didn't choose to jump in and help him, which they did, "You guys just can't get enough of this asskicking can you?" Naruto boasted while blocking a haymaker and returning one of his own straight to an enemy's face.

As more Team Rocket members slowly approached the ninja, the kunoichi, and their two Pokémon, they already had their own Pokémon out before reaching them, not willing to make the same mistake and wind up defeated before ever getting their partners out. Many of his clones fell prey to distance barrages of Poison Sting from the multiple adversaries.

From Naruto's supply pouch he fetched another Poke Ball and threw it, with a new partner emerging and jumping right into the fray with the Team Rocket Pokémon.

"Sazakumoru, hit 'em all with a Bonemerang!" From the new Pokémon, a bone was thrown that hit the trainers first and then came back around to hit their Pokémon.

A small brown Pokémon on two legs with a tail, a light brown stomach, spikes on its spine, and a skull that it wore on its head to conceal the entire thing caught the bone that came back its way before running over to Naruto and hiding behind his leg. The blue scarf with the black Konoha marking on it signified it as Naruto's, "Cu-Cubone!"

Naruto looked down at the little Pokémon and gave it a smile as he gave it a pat on top of its skull helmet, "You've gotta stop being so shy Saza-chan. That was a good attack." He complimented to his recently caught Cubone who continued to hug his leg tightly in a nervous and affectionate manner.

"Air Cutter!"

Not too far from there, Janine held onto her Zubat's legs as it flew and launched wind blades from its wings, terrorizing the retreating Team Rocket members that ran fearfully out of the warehouse, "Ha! You'd better run! Go get real jobs you bums!"

The doors of the warehouse swung open and blasted the fleeing Team Rocket members and Janine's flying Zubat with a powerful burst of electricity. The shock forced Janine to let go as her Zubat suffered in the air. She fearfully called it back inside of its Poke Ball, fearing that too much more of that would prove fatal for the bat.

Seeing Janine's Zubat get shot down, Naruto and his two Pokémon ran over to the girl who was kneeling on the ground from her drop out of the air, glaring at the door as heavy bootsteps sounded out and a rather large and imposing man with spiky blonde hair and sunglasses walked in. He wore military fatigues in conventional camouflage as he stepped over the fallen and sometimes still twitching bodies of the men that he had just attacked.

"So a pair of brats were the ones causing all of this trouble in here?" He said in a gruff voice as many different Magnemites flew in, swarming around the room as Naruto and Janine went back to back against each other to prevent any rear attacks, "I guess if you want something done right you've got to do it yourself."

"Lt. Surge." Janine spat out venomously as she made certain to keep an eye on the Magnemites all over, "It's been a long time… not long enough either in my opinion."

Lt. Surge just stared at Janine vacantly until he noticed her attire and something clicked, getting a chuckle out of him, "Oh! Ninja-man's little brat! I heard you ran away from your daddy because things got too real for you. Heh, small world, you showing back up here and all." He then pointed at Naruto, "Who's the human warning flare?"

"Fuck you." Naruto replied flippantly in reply. He didn't care how big the guy was in comparison to him. Even though he was as big as Jiraiya was, no one slighted his gear. It was good stuff and he knew it, "I don't take insults from bandits."

Lt. Surge let out a loud laugh at Naruto's response, "Well check out the balls on the runt." He said, taking a step forward getting Naruto to draw a kunai from his pouch and hand one to Janine as well. With a slight wave of his hand, his Magnemite team blasted out electricity that drew itself to the weaponry, jolting it out of their hands, "Kids shouldn't hold sharp, pointy objects you know. It's dangerous."

Great. No projectiles. That was just fantastic. Naruto's hand was still numb from the electric shock he had just taken to disarm him.

With the kids surrounded by his Magnemite force, he decided now was the chance for a zero-escape approach. Crush the weaklings quickly. That was how he chose to fight his battles, "Crush those punks with Tackle! They can't get away!"

The dozen-strong Magnemite team attacked one after another as whichever one was close swept forward first. Naruto, Janine, Ranbouen, and Janine's Ariados took their share of knocks as they were knocked to the ground from where they were surrounded, but Naruto realized that he had something of a trump card holding on to one of his legs, "Gah! Ranbouen Dig! Saza-chan use Bone Club!" Ranbouen got right back up and burrowed through the floor to avoid the swarm per Naruto's directions.

On the other hand, Sazakumoru was a very reclusive and timid little Cubone, but she knew when her trainer needed her and Naruto had been kinder to her since meeting her than any other creature she had met beforehand since her mother died. Letting go of Naruto's leg she did her best impersonation of a baseball player and swatted away each directly incoming Magnemite with accuracy.

With the assistance of her Ariados, Janine stood up and watched as Naruto's Cubone impressively knocked away Magnemite after Magnemite, even rendering more than a few unconscious and smashing the magnets on the sides of some others to render them unable to levitate and move about, "Wow. Okay, this is a chance! Ariados let's go!" She climbed onto her Ariados's back and took note of a vulnerable Lt. Surge, "Let's see if you're as tough as you look! Night Shade!"

From Ariados's horn, a wavy black beam was fired directly at Lt. Surge, covering his body in a dark shadow as it hit him and seemed to hurt him from the looks of how he buckled and recoiled from the shot. But he remained standing, something quite staggering to take sight of, "Not bad… but that Pokémon just evolved didn't it?"

"He's still awake after that?" Janine said in shock. He didn't even fall down or anything. He took it like a punch to the stomach or something, "People don't stand up to that!" Still though, he had to be hurting after taking that move, "Tell me where my father is you jackass!" Her question wasn't answered before she wound up being blasted from behind by electricity from a stray Magnemite.

Naruto was using his evasive skills and taijutsu as best he could without getting shocked to help Sazakumoru deal with swatting away their own Magnemite trouble, a fight they were winning because of Sazukumoru's immunity to electricity, but upon hearing Janine let out a cry of agony upon being shocked along with her Ariados, he turned her way and saw her in trouble. He stomped his foot on the ground hard several times, "Ranbouen!"

It took a second for Ranbouen to dig a hole directly beneath Janine's Ariados, saving them from the electricity. As multiple Magnemites swarmed around the hole, a single spitfire of flame shot out and hit one of them before scattering and hitting several others with the fire before the Growlithe jumped out of the hole himself, growling at his fallen foes.

"Cute." Lt. Surge said with a frown at not being able to kill off Janine even though he was certain that she wouldn't be getting back up. That Ariados would have been paralyzed and unable to escape were it not for that stupid hole. He then let out a chuckle when he saw Naruto directly charging him with a copy of himself running at his side, forming a Rasengan between the two of them, "Are you out of your mind?"

Ranbouen barked and fired an Ember at Naruto's Rasengan, hitting it and sparking it ablaze much to his surprise, "Katon: Rasengan (Fire Release: Spiraling Sphere)!"

'Is this the kid that the Boss told me was cutting a trail through the grunts back at Mt. Moon?' Weird orange clothes, spiky blonde hair a lighter shade than his own, weird facial markings? Yeah it had to be the same kid, because he had been doing it here too. With help from the girl, but it was still impressive, "Ha!" He dropped a Poke Ball directly in front of himself with a Pokémon emerging, "Not tonight little man! ThunderPunch!"

The white light of a Pokémon coming out from its Poke Ball concealed the movements of whatever was inside. Naruto doubted that even someone with Sharingan would have been able to follow the pattern of movement until the creature began to take shape, but by then no living being would be able to physically react in time. And he wound up getting punched right in the stomach, simultaneously taking volts and volts of electricity through his body.

Naruto let out a choked wail from the hit and the shock. But it wasn't over just yet.

"Seismic Toss!"

At this point, Naruto was viciously thrown through the doors outside onto the hard dirt ground where he bounced several times before sliding to a stop on the ground. Random jolts of electricity went through his body as he twitched in place.

Yep, he still hated electricity. Absence from getting plowed through the chest with a Chidori did not make the heart grow fonder for that terrible element. He started to move and stand when Ranbouen and Sazakumoru ran up to him, the dog licking his face and the little Cubone looking like she was about to cry, "Oh Kami… I think I'd rather take a Chidori… at least the fox kicked in afterwards."

As Naruto coughed repeatedly and shakily stood up, Lt. Surge walked outside with his Pokémon that had just delivered a violent two-shot beating onto Naruto. An angry looking yellow-furred humanoid Pokémon with two antennae on its head and two sharp fangs protruding from its mouth. There were black lightning bolt patterns that ran down its body and its arms and legs as well as the slender tail that it had, right down to the three-clawed toes on its feet.

"You can still move? That really is impressive." Lt. Surge said with a chuckle as his Pokémon radiated pure electricity from rage at his side, "Electabuzz's punches have killed bigger people than you. Let alone a ThunderPunch. Heh. Too bad, you could have been working with us."

Naruto was unable to answer at first due to his ongoing coughing fit. Ranbouen growled defensively for his wounded master and lowered his head before charging forward at the Electabuzz and Lt. Surge for a Skull Bash. A foolish endeavor, but without Naruto's direction Ranbouen was fighting on instinct.

Surge didn't let the Growlithe get close to land the devastating attack with his order to his Electabuzz, "Electro Ball." The casual order preceded a quick thrusting out of Electabuzz's hands that sent a soccer ball sized ball of electricity at Ranbouen that was faster than he could move. The attack made contact and exploded in static as it knocked Ranbouen back onto the ground, "Your little babies can't touch Electabuzz. They're not on his level. Literally."

"Ranbouen…" Naruto started to lunge forward but he was still very dinged up and wound up stumbling back to his knees momentarily, 'Come on. It's not even close to being over yet!' Naruto's eyes flickered red just long enough to garner him enough chakra to form a solid and tangible extension from his hands, "Chakura no Kusari (Chakra Chains)!"

Two chains shot out from his hands into the ground and remerged to grab a tight hold of Electabuzz's arms to keep the electric Pokémon in place to prevent it from advancing any further towards Ranbouen. The determined Growlithe stood up and charged the imposing looking electric Pokémon before sinking his teeth into the neck/shoulder area of it.

It hurt badly, but it also greatly angered the Electabuzz as it growled and its antennae started generating electricity between them, something that Lt. Surge took immediate advantage of, "Let them suck on 100,000 volts. Hit those runts with a Thunderbolt."

Electabuzz's entire body generated intense lightning and badly shocked Ranbouen from direct contact and Naruto by their connection with his Chakra Chains. Naruto cried out, his body racked with incredible pain from the ongoing flow of electricity through his entire body. The chains disappeared from existence and he fell forward onto the ground, smoke flying off of his frame. Ranbouen fell limply to the side, thoroughly spent from directly taking the powerful attack.

Sazakumoru whined and feverishly tried to get Naruto to stand back up, but it was an effort in vain. Even though Naruto grit his teeth and tried to stand back up it was slow going, "Saza-chan…" Naruto muttered, "Run away okay? I know you're a ground type, but you're not strong enough to beat that thing."

That was one thing that Sazakumoru was never going to do, run away from Naruto. He had been the nicest thing in the world to her since her late mother. But she was still pretty jittery. Even so, she turned and stood her ground, bone club in hand prepared to fight anyway. The much more experienced Electabuzz was basically licking its chops as it prepared to smash an easy victory out of the ground Pokémon.

At that point, Lt. Surge let out sounds of struggle as his legs became engulfed by the dark sludge body of a Grimer, Janine's Grimer, "What the hell? Get off!" As he tried to pull himself free he barely noticed a descending shadow until it was too late and wound up taking a flying kick to the face from a banged up Janine who fell to her knees almost immediately after landing the kick.

"Ah!" The beating from the earlier Tackle attacks by the metal Magnemites and the Thundershocks had taken their toll on her body, and with her fainted Ariados and Zubat she didn't have them to help her lessen the self-damage done by her acrobatics.

Blood poured from Surge's nose and mouth as a result of Janine's kick, and he was still stuck in place by Grimer, but he remained strong enough to prevent the slimy blob from covering his arms, "You weak little punks just don't know when to quit, do you? Electabuzz, finish that runt Cubone! Ice Punch!"

"Saza-chan, move!" Naruto warned, but Sazakumoru wouldn't do so and let Naruto take another hit in her place. She was able to block with her bone, but the impact of the punch froze the bone club in her hands and knocked her directly on top of Naruto, "It's okay." He said to the fitful little Cubone that he was able to take into his arms despite the injuries ravaging him, "I haven't had you for long enough to train you for this."

With Surge still trapped by the Grimer pawing to get up higher on him, Janine got back up and proceeded to attack him with her bare hands, connecting with punches off of his face and torso, but she might as well have been punching a solid block as Surge eventually grabbed her arms and directly collided his head with hers in a headbutt before throwing her away, "Electabuzz! Juice me and get this useless blob off of me! Thundershock!"

Electabuzz seemed to take great pleasure in blasting its master with a thunder attack from its antennae, but Surge merely grit his teeth and bore with the jolts until Grimer puddled at his feet as a reflex and allowed him to walk out over to Janine who was getting back up. He lifted a foot up and smashed the sole of his boot off of her to knock her back to the ground, "You two… are tough. But you're both not that smart… taking on one of the three leaders of Team Rocket. I'm nowhere near the grunts you've been beating up for kicks. If you can't stand up with your Pokémon in a battle then get off of the field!"

"This isn't for kicks…" Janine said, trying to move before Lt. Surge mockingly placed a foot on her back to hold her down, "Tell me where my dad is!"

"I can't do that because I don't know darling." Surge said in a patronizing fashion, "The missions to the Team Rocket Elite Triad aren't shared between the three of us. Only the Boss knows." He stomped down on her back and elicited a shout of pain from her, "I wonder how mad your old man would be if I finished you off though?" He then looked up and laughed when he saw Naruto shakily standing up with the help of two Kage Bunshin that didn't look any better than he did, "That's interesting."

Instead of running at him though, Naruto had Ranbouen return to a Poke Ball before he let his clones grab him and they both hurled him directly at Surge, much to the man's surprise, "Bunshin Taiatari (Clone Body Blow)!" The crown of his head plowed directly into Surge's body, knocking him off of Janine's back and into his own Electabuzz as every single trainer and Pokémon lay out on the ground.

Lt. Surge was directly on his back looking up at the dark night sky sucking air into his system as fast as he could as Naruto had just knocked all of it right out of him, 'That kid can't weigh that much more than 110 pounds soaking wet! I feel like I just got hit by a battering ram!' He sat up and glared at the two injured ninja who were stirring from their own places in the dirt, "Electabuzz, get up and kill those two. You don't stop shocking them until their bodies turn black." He ordered, getting back up slowly as his Pokémon jumped up and beat its chest and let out a battle cry.

Naruto winced as he crawled back to his hands and knees next to Janine who was doing the same while holding her back, "Saza-chan's hands are frozen and Ranbouen's out of it. I can't send Hogohei out to help me fight that thing and Surge… he'll get killed in a second, especially on dry land."

"I'm no more good here Naruto." Janine said in a strained voice before her back cracked as she tried to put her feet back beneath herself and stand up. A pained whimper escaped her as she sank back to her belly, "I can try Venonat, but I haven't been training her that much. It's been mostly Spinarak until he evolved into Ariados."

This was nothing like fighting Brock or Misty's Pokémon under a set of rules. Not only was this akin to nothing more than a deathmatch, Lt. Surge was utterly ruthless, and his team could take the two of them and their Pokémon at the same time? This was what Janine meant when she spoke of the differences in Gym Leaders from what he had seen so far. Did that mean that they varied in intensity and strength or did they all just get progressively crazier and stronger after Lt. Surge?

First they had to fight the Team Rocket underlings, then they had to go through a murderer's row of Surge's Magnemite collection, and then Surge himself and his Electabuzz. And he rarely left himself open for direct attacks. Naruto's Rasengan from before was the closest he had come to putting the man down.

Naruto managed to stand back up in a fighting stance, prepared to take the full measure of Surge's Electabuzz and Surge himself if he had anything left in the tank afterwards. Of course he'd have something left in the tank. He wasn't _that_ beat up.

Yeah… and his muscles weren't still shaking and periodically locking up from the repeated electric lashes from Electabuzz.

He almost stumbled out of his stance as latent electricity rippled through his body, but that jarring of his body forced a Poke Ball to stumble out of his supply pouch. It rolled for a bit before opening up and revealing Naruto's Tyrogue, Fukigenko.

When another Pokémon made itself known, Lt. Surge was prepared for the worst only to see a baby fighting Pokémon come out. Despite how heated the battle with a pair of snot-nosed brats had gotten, he still took the time to make his humor at the situation known with his laughter, "That's the best you've got left? Another little baby? Ninja-man's girl-brat had more impressive looking Pokémon than you! At least she managed to evolve her Ariados first!"

A tick mark appeared on Fukigenko's head at being insulted so brazenly by an opponent he hadn't even gotten the chance to fight yet, but he didn't storm forward. Instead he looked back towards Naruto as if to ask him if it was okay to fight, remembering the earlier episode from that day. Naruto gave him a stiff nod and Fukigenko started bouncing on the tips of his feet in excitement, "We're doing this together." Naruto said before dropping a smoke bomb from his supply pouch.

Fukigenko flew out of the smoke first and Surge pointed at it so that Electabuzz caught sight of him, "Thundershock!" The jolt of electricity hit Fukigenko, but it turned out to be a Henged clone that disappeared in a puff of smoke.

This opening allowed Naruto to touch fist to Electabuzz's chin in a strong punch that knocked it back. Simultaneously, Fukigenko's advised use of Tackle plowed right into Lt. Surge, knocking the Vermillion Gym team backwards. Surge merely slid backwards on his heels while Electabuzz rolled through its fall and regained its footing, shaking its head out.

A growling surge held his torso where Fukigenko struck him. His ribs were definitely injured from that one… the little runt, "Knock the blonde punk out first. Make it fast. Quick Attack!" He smirked when Electabuzz left an afterimage trail behind it prior to slamming directly into Naruto who didn't have the time to react before being knocked swiftly to the ground by the Pokémon's full bodyweight. Fukigenko looked at his master in shock at seeing him get hit so severely and missed Surge towering over him until he got hit with a double-fisted hammer strike to the head, "Lights out!"

Fukigenko was knocked to the ground, but wincing at the blow he had taken he jumped right back up and used Fake Out to disorient Surge and bury his fist in the hulking man's stomach. A follow-up was not in the cards when Electabuzz made its presence known with a sweeping Low Kick that knocked Fukigenko down, "ThunderPunch!" Surge coughed out as blood was dripping from his mouth.

The shocking fist missed when Fukigenko rolled out of the way and instead smashed into the ground.

Narrowly avoiding that punch got the little Tyrogue's blood pumping hard. Avoiding the next several punches that almost took his head out only did so further until one shot grazed his cheek and shocked him, knocking him down.

A sliding dropkick at his human enemy's legs from Naruto knocked Lt. Surge down as he rushed to get back to Fukigenko for another combined attack, "Fuki get up! You keep trying to fight me like you're tough, well prove it! Janine's hurt, Ranbouen's hurt, Saza-chan's out of it! So show me something special!"

Fukigenko scowled and got back up off of the ground in the face of the Electabuzz that towered over him. He let out an irritated growl that grew in volume from his throat as he walked forward brazenly and pushed his head against the Electabuzz's stomach. This was something that the larger and stronger Pokémon thought was funny until Fukigenko began to glow white.

Naruto's eyes widened as he had seen such a thing before; when Janine's Ariados evolved a few days ago, "Fuki?" He was evolving? Had they really been training that hard with each other? Either way, a grin crossed Naruto's face as the white silhouette began to grow and fill out. Even during a fight he had to take his Pokédex out to find out what he was seeing.

"_Hitmonlee; the Kicking Pokémon. One of the possible evolved forms of Tyrogue, Hitmonlee is a nimble Pokémon that can launch devastating kicks from any position due to its flexible legs that can extend and retract at will to add range to its physical attacks."_

His newly evolved Pokémon was a brown colored humanoid-looking creature with a round egg-like head, no nose or mouth, almond-shaped eyes with black rings around them, and no neck. He had three fingers on his hands and three claw-like toes, as well as cream colored muscles on his arms and legs that looked similar to springs.

Now it stood taller than Electabuzz who was shocked at the little Tyrogue's sudden evolution. If Fukigenko's new face could smirk, he would have been grinning up a storm at not being the diminutive one in a battle any longer. The two were now head-to-head, and Fukigenko headbutted off of it before delivering a series of rapid kicks to the face that knocked the Electabuzz down.

"Yeah Fuki!" Naruto shouted happily before turning his attention to a stunned looking Lt. Surge, "Fuki might have been a baby, but I trained with him every single day… for hours." Because he didn't have much of a choice, Fukigenko was very assertive. Naruto hoped that he would mellow out now that he had evolved, "So tell me, I'm still a newbie with Pokémon. Does that carry over when they evolve? Because your Electabuzz isn't looking so scary anymore."

At that comment, they both turned and saw Electabuzz trying in vain to ThunderPunch Fukigenko only for it to miss and an extending kick to nail it in the stomach in return prior to a spin kick landing to the face swiftly thereafter; a Double Kick.

"Stop playing around and finish that stupid thing Electabuzz!" Lt. Surge howled authoritatively as he was watching one of his best Pokémon get pummeled, but it wasn't able to get away from Fukigenko's dogged pursuit. He was getting his pound of flesh back come hell or high water, "What the hell's going on!"

Apparently he had forgotten that there was one dangerous little brat standing roughly ten to fifteen feet away from him, who could make clones… clones that could help him form a Rasengan… that he didn't hesitate to use, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto hit Lt. Surge in his right arm and right side, blasting him meters away straight through the chain-link fence at the border of the property, leaving a bloody human-sized hole.

Without a trainer, Electabuzz was forced to rely on its own strategy, which wouldn't have mattered anyway because it was a right brute. That never came into play though, as Fukigenko had tons and tons of frustration to work off, and it did so by kicking eight different shades of crap out of the electric Pokémon in fast-forward.

"Fuki try a Jump Kick!" Janine shouted as she had finally managed to stand back up, just in time to bear witness to the evolution of Naruto's Tyrogue into a Hitmonlee, 'Way to go little guy.' She thought to herself as she saw him jump into the air and deliver a stiff flying kick straight to the Electabuzz's face hard enough to knock it across the ground in a heap, depositing it directly into one of the disabled trucks.

"Whoo!" Naruto cheered immediately before running over to his new Hitmonlee and checking him over, "Aw, you look all sleek and mean and badass! And those kicks were so fast! It was like Bushy Brows or something!" He looked down at Sazakumoru who had gone back to nervously clinging to his leg now that the battle was over and her hands and bone had thawed out, "Don't just hide there Saza-chan, say hi to Fuki!"

A clearing of a female's throat got all three's attention in Janine's direction as she shakily stood in place, "As nice as it is to see you and your Pokémon mingle, three of my four are hurt, so are yours, we've got a ton of Pokémon we need to return to people, a bunch of Team Rocket losers to get arrested, and we both need to go to the hospital… 'cause I don't really think I can walk too far right now." She lifted one of her hands to show it involuntarily shaking, "That's not healthy is it?"

Naruto and his two Pokémon just stared at her before he shook his head in the negative, "Um, it might just be the adrenaline wearing off…" He said with a sheepish chuckle before muttering under his breath as he turned to limp off towards the authorities after making a few clones to clean things up around there, "…That or nerve damage."

As Naruto's clones puttered about trying to make heads or tails of the havoc they had just wreaked, Janine staggered over to the hold in the fence that had been punched by Lt. Surge's body to find the man knocked out and bleeding internally from Naruto's Rasengan. On the left breast of his fatigue top there sat a badge in the form of an eight-pointed golden star with an orange octagon in the center; the Thunder Badge, the mark of victory over the Vermillion City Gym.

Reaching down, Janine ripped it off of his shirt and gave the man one last kick for the trouble they had just been through that night. If he died he died. She didn't really care as he had brought it upon himself, "That belongs to Naruto now." She said as she turned and tried to walk away with as much dignity as she could muster just in case anyone was watching.

XxX

(Two Days Later – Vermillion City – Outside of the Pokémon Fan Club)

Most of the Team Rocket bunch were rounded up by the police in Vermillion City, but Lt. Surge was not to be found as he had awoken from Naruto's coup de grace and had escaped the scene, probably with help from his multitude of Magnemites and his Electabuzz as they were gone too. But all of the Pokémon in the warehouses were safe and being treated in the Pokémon Center before being returned to their trainers.

The entire fan club stood outside of their clubhouse to greet the saviors of many of their Pokémon. The shinobi pair were too late for some as they had been shipped out long before the duo had arrived, but they had managed to save a right many Pokémon that night and many more in the future by busting the smuggling ring up.

"I'd like to thank you two for a job well done." The Chairman of the Pokémon Fan Club said to a smiling Naruto and Janine, both bandaged up on visible parts of their bodies from the battle not too long ago. Naruto was just wearing the bandages on his face for Janine's sake so that she didn't pout about how he had healed so quickly, "You've made a lot of people happy and saved many of our friends."

A grinning Naruto set his hands behind his head, "Mah, it wasn't that big of a deal old man. We were glad to help."

"Yes, of course." Janine echoed the sentiment before rubbing her hands together, "…Now I believe we never discussed the topic of the intended payment for services rendered. It's standard procedure really. You understand." Naruto elbowed her sharply in the side, getting her to yelp, "Ow! Still tender!"

"Stop being greedy damn it! We don't need anything!"

"Speak for yourself! I know the value of hard night's work for a hard night's pay and I like being rewarded!"

"Can't you just accept the thanks and be done with it? We did a good thing, dattebayo!"

"What kind of ninja doesn't get compensated for their missions? That's retarded! We're not rich!"

"…Okay, you've got a point I guess."

The Chairman tried to get the two to stop arguing at that point as it wouldn't do to have their two heroes fight right out in front of the club house, "It's alright young man. We don't have any problems rewarding you accordingly. It's a token of our gratitude towards your hard work after all. Everyone?"

At that point, the entirety of the fan club took off the shirts they had been wearing to show black t-shirts with images of Naruto and Janine emblazoned on the fronts, much to the chagrin of the two young ninja, 'That's… not cool at all.' Both of them thought unbeknownst to the other, 'What kind of reward is that?'

"Impressive right?" The Chairman said, gesturing to his club members as he took the stunned silence and the looks of horror on the faces of Naruto and Janine as amazement, "This is our new merchandise in honor of you two, and it's to be sold by mail-order request along with our other products in our monthly newsletter that will chronicle your actions and introduce you two as honorary members!"

'Damn it!' Naruto shouted in his head. He liked being acknowledged in a glorious manner, but he had just found his ego's limit. There was not a single person in that group under the age of 29… and that was where he drew the line.

'I'd rather have a large sum of money…' Janine thought with a twitching eye. Good old money. Money would always make you look cool. Not like this. If that got as far as home then she'd never hear the end of it once she got back. But that actually gave her a thought, because their likenesses were being used in marketing, "…Do we get paid for the shirts that sell?" She asked in a tentatively hopeful manner.

XxX

(Celadon City – Secret Team Rocket Base)

The fluorescent hum of the lighting system set up throughout the base was the only sound that could be heard in Giovanni's office as the man himself sat behind his desk, his hands clasped and his eyes closed as he seemed to be in thought.

His thoughts were interrupted by a feeling of the air in the room shifting, "Hm. I didn't even know the elevator had even let anyone off down here, let alone the door to the office opening. Any particular reason you felt the need to show off?"

Sitting in a couch off to the side, there was a dark-haired man chuckling smugly to himself. He seemed to wear the normal dark Team Rocket uniform and beret, only the sleeves were shorter on his forearm instead of to his wrists and the collar was a deep v to show mesh armor underneath. On his feet around his shins and around his hands and wrists he wore defensive grieves, and around his neck he had on a long dark red scarf, "Not particularly. Practice makes perfect you know. Getting down to your office without anyone knowing I'm even in the building is decent training for my stealth… it's also less annoying than dealing with the grunts."

"Lt. Surge was defeated in Vermillion City. He was badly injured and we lost more than a few operatives stationed. We weren't even able to get the recent intended shipment of Pokémon to the docks." Giovanni abruptly said, getting down to business. It didn't prevent the mysterious man in the couch from letting out a snicker, "You might be interested in who defeated him as well."

"Whoever it was he obviously underestimated them." There didn't seem to be much concern for his comrade in the man's voice, "Surge is a brute of a Gym Leader. He's powerful but he's arrogant when he believes his enemies are beneath him."

"I can only hope that he learns from being beaten." Giovanni stated with no humor in his tone. Failure on the magnitude of losing a smuggling port like Vermillion City… he'd have an underling crushed for less. But Lt. Surge was still a Gym Leader, which meant that he was strong and still very important to the group. He would probably never allow anything of that sort to happen again, "And I can also only hope that the remainder of my Elite Triad do not overlook any obstacle set in front of Team Rocket's success."

"Of course Boss." The man on the couch said with a tilt of his beret. He then noticed that the man had lifted up a piece of paper with some sort of pictures on it. The image of which got him to narrow his eyes.

"These are the two that defeated Surge. Courtesy of a newsletter from our 'friends' the Vermillion City branch of the Pokémon Fan Club." Giovanni tapped the image on lower portion of the paper, showing a grinning blonde boy wearing orange summer clothing and a blue headband with a metal plate, "This is Uzumaki Naruto. He's been quite the dangerous pest lately, and he seems to have a distaste for what Team Rocket represents." He then pointed at the image of Janine above Naruto's, "I believe that the girl is named-."

He was cut off mid-sentence when a shuriken sliced through the paper, separating the two images with a clean cut. Giovanni seemed to show no fear at having a dangerous ninja weapon come so close to harming him. Instead he had an eyebrow raised in silent inquisition as to what his elite member's problem was.

"I know what the girl's name is." The gruff rebuttal came from the man as he got up off of the couch and turned his back towards Giovanni, "I _should_ know seeing as how I was the one there when she received it. The girl's name is Janine… my daughter."

Giovanni had turned around in his chair to tug the shuriken out of his wall behind his desk and turned around to find the man he had been speaking to gone. He looked at the shuriken in his hand, the image of Janine in his other, and the picture of Naruto that had been cut and had fallen to the floor. It now had the footprint of the man from before on it.

A smirk crossed his face as Giovanni inadvertently drew blood from his finger as he felt the blades of the ninja tool, "Well isn't that just interesting?"

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 6: Vermillion City<span>

"Come on Oak." Minato said as he walked down a path out of town towards the east with Professor Oak. Another trip where the good professor wished to get out and travel around for some field work and found that Minato's Hiraishin no Jutsu was exceedingly too convenient, "If I was trying to impress a woman that likes me… but thinks I'm flaky, how would I do it?"

Prof. Oak rolled his eyes and chuckled at the younger man, "If she's already your girlfriend then I don't see why you would need to impress her. Did you ever think that she likes the 'flaky' you as you so eloquently put it?" Instead of Hiraishining back as they weren't in any kind of hurry, they decided to take the naturally formed Diglett Tunnel as something of a scenic route back to Pallet Town's neck of the woods.

"Well damn it, it's hard to impress a kunoichi." Minato argued in turn, getting Oak to laugh louder. How would Minato have trouble impressing anyone? The things he could do were incredible, "You don't know what some of those women can do. Besides, I've hung around with Kushina since we were kids. Any new jutsu I came up with that was cool, she's seen them so much she's not impressed by any of that."

"I'd hope that you were well past the stage where you would need to impress her if you carry a picture of her around with you to show others." Oak commented, getting an embarrassed blush out of Minato as he muttered about Kushina being cute, "You're an adult."

"That's what being Hokage is about too." Minato informed his Kanto-based friend, "You need an impeccable record full of the most ridiculous feats that no other ninja around you is capable of pulling off. It's kind of the thing that makes all of the people believe in you. You need that if you want to run the village."

The more he talked about the Elemental Nations, with the people there that could perform similarly superhuman feats like Minato, it made the scientist in Oak want to see it for himself more and more, "I think I'd like to visit your home Minato. You say that it's a longer than two month trip by sea?" That was a long time to be out on the ocean, but it might have been worth sating his curiosity.

A shake of Minato's spiky blonde head and a frown was his response, "It's not really a good time for it at all, the war and all. And besides, it's normally really dangerous most of the rest of the time anyway." He loved his homeland, but he wouldn't advise leisure trips across the landscape for anyone he wished to keep in one piece.

The two merely continued to walk until they came to what was supposed to be the entrance of the Diglett Tunnel cave, only to find something blocking the entrance, "Oh my…" Oak muttered at the inconvenience of what was before them.

"Oak… what the hell is that?" Minato asked tentatively, pointing forward at the mammoth creature barring their path.

It was a very large Pokémon that towered over the both of them height-wise, but the most impressive thing about it was its sheer girth. Minato didn't know if even ten of himself would weight enough to match that creature. It was large (mostly gut), dark blue/green with a white colored belly side, and had arms and legs that were stubby for its size with four claws on its hands and three claws on its feet.

"Snorlax…" Professor Oak sounded as if this was a major problem, "I hadn't heard about one blocking any important areas lately so this one must have just recently fallen asleep here." He noticed Minato giving him a strange look, "That's a bad thing. A Snorlax can sleep for over a month straight at a time, and you can't just wake it up."

Well damn. That wasn't really a problem for them because they could just use Hiraishin to get back to Pallet Town, but for anyone else this was a major problem. They would have to go all the back up to Cerulean City, back through Mt. Moon, and down through Pewter City and Viridian City. Anyone looking to get to the last two places would have a long, long, long trip ahead of them instead of the half day it would take to get through Diglett Tunnel.

Minato then noticed Professor Oak giving him an expectant look that confused him, "What?"

"Aren't you going to do some Konoha ninja thing to power you up and let you move Snorlax out of the way?"

"…You know… just because I'm so fast, that doesn't mean I can move this thing. How much does it weight?"

"Well upwards of 1000 pounds. This one seems larger though. It must have just eaten."

"Yeah, I can't move that. Not even close." Minato looked at his three Poke Balls on his person and frowned, "Beedrill, Noctowl, and Exeggcute." None of those three really had much knockout power behind them. They were his kind of Pokémon; the finesse and precision type, "Oh well." He threw a Poke Ball and out came a large brown owl with trident horns that looked like eyebrows, "Noctowl, we need to wake that Snorlax up. Use Dream Eater."

That made sense to Minato. Snorlax was in the way because it was asleep, and who would stay asleep with a dream inexplicably ripped away from them?

Oak paled as the Snorlax had just fallen asleep. That meant that it could still be woken up fairly easily as it wasn't deeply into its slumber yet, and waking up a Snorlax was the easiest way to set one off, "Minato wait, while that would get the Snorlax to move…" Oak said as a shadow of Noctowl flew into the Snorlax and the looks of discomfort on the Pokémon's face were as clear as day before its eyes snapped open beadily, "Take us back to my lab please. Now!"

Minato wondered what the problem was until he saw the angry and cranky Snorlax stand up with its footsteps shaking the ground in the immediate vicinity before it suddenly leapt into the air, intent on crushing the two men and the Noctowl beneath its incredible girth. Without another word he grabbed his Pokémon and Oak and disappeared in a yellow flash just as the ground where they had been standing got smashed.

The Snorlax got up with a confused look on its face when he saw nothing beneath it after its attempted Body Slam, nor around it, as if they vanished into thin air. With the object of its rage nowhere around, the lazy Pokémon let out a low growl and scratched it stomach before plodding off to find something else to eat so it could go back to sleep easier.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe): Male   
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire).

Hogohei (Shellder): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting).

Sazakumoru (Cubone): Female  
>Attacks: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal).<p>

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Zubat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying).

Venonat: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal).

Lt. Surge's Current Pokémon Team

Magnemite: Genderless x12+  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Thundershock (Electric), Supersonic (Normal), Metal Sound (Metal).

Electabuzz: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Quick Attack (Normal), Thundershock (Electric), Low Kick (Fighting), ThunderPunch (Electric), Thunderbolt (Electric), Screech (Normal), Electro Ball (Electric).

* * *

><p><strong>No angry, half-aware rant tonight. It's past 1 and I just got back in, so I will be hitting the sack.<strong>

**Cheers. Kenchi out.  
><strong>


	8. Whatever Doesn't Kill You

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. Now catch that and get out of my face.

**Chapter 8: Whatever Doesn't Kill You**

* * *

><p>A grinning Naruto walked through the halls of a very large ship behind a very smug looking Janine. It had been a few days since they had defeated Lt. Surge and the Team Rocket kidnappers stationed in Vermillion City, breaking up a smuggling ring for the criminal organization.<p>

It took long enough, but Janine had finally healed up well enough that she didn't have to be treated like a glass figurine any longer, thus it was time to celebrate… in a way of speaking.

"I can't believe you actually got us tickets to get on this ship." Naruto said aloud as he munched on a cookie that he had snagged from the dining hall a few moments earlier. He continued to speak with his mouth full, spitting a few crumbs about, "You don't seem like the kind of person to spring for something like that."

Ignoring the crumbs as none had hit her yet, Janine waved off the compliments as if he were flattering her, "Fufufufu, it's no big deal. We earned a chance to relax, and nothing fits that bill like a good old-fashioned leisure cruise." It was true enough as they had been through quite a bit since they had met, with no breaks either. Downtime was a very necessary thing in this case, "Just think of it Naruto. In a few hours the S.S. Anne will be sailing all over Kanto, we'll be going to Johto… maybe the Sevii Islands, and who knows where else?"

Polishing off his cookie and wiping his hands together to clean them off, Naruto swallowed and wiped stray cookie pieces from his mouth just in case, "Yeah, I don't know what any of those places are, but I'm sure they're cool." He said dismissively, getting Janine to glare a bit at him at his nonchalance.

"Glutton." Janine remarked, crossing her arms over her chest as they passed by a few other guests in the hall, "You ate like five huge bowls of ramen back at the buffet and you walked out with three huge cookies. How are you not fat the way you eat?"

Naruto just shrugged and placed his hands behind his head and neck in a relaxed position, "I work out?"

"Training and working out is not the same thing." Janine replied as she gestured to her own figure, "_I_ work out as well as train, and it shows in my budding young figure. _You_ just train, and you're in pretty good shape, but you don't have much muscle tone." She poked at Naruto's belly much to his chagrin, "You don't have any body fat, but you're kind of on the scrawny side too."

Scrawny? Those were totally fighting words, "Just wait until I hit my growth spurt and we'll see what you say then." He wasn't scrawny, he was lean at most. There was a difference, "And it's not like you've got that much to be gloating about anyway, seriously."

Freezing in mid-step, Janine stopped in the hallway and got Naruto to walk into her back, "…What did you just say?" She uttered dangerously.

Not sensing the danger he had mired himself into, Naruto brazenly pressed forward with making his point, "You heard me. Yeah you're kind of cute for being our age and your body's pretty nice, but it's not like I haven't been around prettier women that are actually grown up. You don't even come close to some of them really, like Kurenai-sens-."

He stopped talking when Janine's arm lashed out and punched the wall with enough force to drive her fist right through it. Naruto finally backed away from her as she turned around with a demonic look in her eyes, "I hope you're still hungry, because you're about to swallow some teeth."

Without even bothering to waste valuable time and space talking her down, Naruto immediately turned tail and took off down the hall with the ninja girl hot on his heels. Thankfully she was so mad that she wasn't even thinking about trying to use one of her Pokémon to catch him.

It was a reckless chase, with the two running through the ballroom that was being used for battling between trainers onboard, the game room which among other things was being used for battling between trainers onboard, and eventually out onto the deck which was being used for patrons to relax by the pools, play some games… and also for battling between trainers onboard.

The pool… sanctuary at last.

Janine slid to a stop just short of charging straight into the pool when she saw Naruto sprint right across the top of the water as if it were solid ground. Damn it, she was hoping he wouldn't be smart enough to pull that off in the middle of the pursuit, "You get back over here and take your lumps! You don't say things like that to a young lady!"

"I say what I want. What are you gonna do about it?" Naruto teased from his safe zone. Ah, he was so glad that ninja training in Kanto didn't involve the use of chakra. He felt a bit sorry for Janine… but not at the moment. He was happy that she couldn't go after him any further at the moment, "Oh that's right; a whole lot of nothing!"

Fuming at the poolside, Janine started feeling around on her person before looking around for random stuff to pick up, "I'm going to find something to throw… and then you're definitely gonna get it."

Shaking his head at her persistence, Naruto just clicked his tongue pitifully. She wasn't going to get him as long as he was out there unless she wanted to try and jump at him, but with a pool that size she'd never make it. He was just fine where he was.

Still, he was going to stay as close to the center of the pool as he could. Something easier said than done because of the sizeable tiki bar that was situated in the middle of it. Oh well. He could sit down on the roof until Janine got bored and went away if all else failed. Hogohei would enjoy the water at least.

Strolling his way to the bar, Naruto caught sight of a few female patrons in bikinis sitting on underwater stools against the counter laughing at something the bartender was telling them. Now he was about to turn back around and use the lovely ladies as examples to poke more fun at Janine, but once he got a look at who the bartender was that had them blushing, giggling messes he completely lost his train of thought, "Ero-sennin?"

Long spiky white hair? Red lines going down his cheeks from his eyes? Tall muscular physical build? Yep there was no doubt about it. And his response was more than enough of a clincher if everything else hadn't been. He had on a red tropical shirt and was serving drinks to the girls, probably as a method of hitting on them. And it was working.

"Damn it brat I'm busy here, save that name for later!" Jiraiya snapped almost instinctually before blinking and looking in the direction he heard his disliked nickname called from, "Naruto? Brat, what are you doing here?"

Naruto moved towards the bar and hopped down behind it while the girls 'awwed' at how cute he was. Jiraiya idly thought about how much of a chick magnet Naruto would be for him until he got too big to be adorable to young ladies… by then he'd have to have him trained to be an effective wingman if he wanted to keep getting use out of Naruto in that manner.

"That's what I should be asking you." Naruto responded with a bit of a scowl on his face, "You've been gone for weeks and I find you on a cruise ship? I knew you'd beat me to Vermillion City somehow! How do you keep doing that?"

Jiraiya looked at Naruto incredulously before laughing boisterously and ruffling his young charge's hair, "I'm glad you've finally realized my obvious talent in the ninja arts that sits far beyond any other mere mortal man, but I didn't know you were here. I caught a ride on this ship from Cinnabar Island after the merchant ship dropped me off."

Looking around his alcohol centered surroundings, Naruto deadpanned a look at his toad summoning sensei, "…You're bartending."

"And the ladies love it." Jiraiya reached over the counter and gave the two girls he had been serving tight hugs that simply proved his point as they both kissed him on the cheek, "This new continent is great. No one's tried to kill me once since I've been here. What a vacation!"

"Good for you." A sarcastic Naruto said as he leaned his arms and head on the counter. He couldn't say the same, "This place is just as crazy as the Elemental Nations are. And these Pokémon that are all over the place? Man, there are so many."

Ah, that hokey mission that Tsunade gave him. He was still taking that seriously even after he read her note? Well an S-rank mission was an S-rank mission he guessed, "Good. But you have been training haven't you?"

"Oh you don't even know Ero-sennin." Naruto said with a huge grin right before he got dinged in the head from a distance by a metal coin, "Ow! What the fu-? Who just threw money at me?"

"If you were training, why didn't you dodge that?"

"Why didn't you tell me it was coming if you knew you jerk?"

"Because I didn't."

"I told you I'd get something to hit you with!" Janine's voice rang out from her original place at poolside. She had changed into a light purple strapless two-piece bathing suit and held a decent amount of money in coin form in her arms, "On the way to the changing room I battled with some guy that had a Meowth that tried using Pay Day like a million times!" Though it hurt her heart to throw money, it wasn't like it was her money she was hurling at him.

"Janine, stop!" Naruto shouted, peering over the counter before getting hit in the metal of his headband, forcing him to duck back down, "You'll put my eye out!"

"Well if you can't appreciate a girl's hard-earned looks you don't need to have eyes to see with do you? Just apologize!"

Not a word in Uzumaki Naruto's personal dictionary. Apologize for nothing, regret less, "Bite me!" He noticed Jiraiya just hanging out to the side with the girls from before, using the little childish spat to get in better with them, "Ero-sennin stop her before she breaks some bottles or something."

Jiraiya was having a blast watching Naruto cower from the assault of currency courtesy of Janine, "Meh, her aim's good enough. She hasn't come close to hitting anything except you yet. So who is she? Did you piss off someone on the ship?"

"That's Janine." Naruto said, reaching for a serving tray to deflect coins with as he stood back up and blocked her ongoing attack while taunting her with pulling down his eyelid and sticking his tongue out all before holding up the tray to block his face, "We had a fight I think two weeks after you left, and we just started travelling together after that." He then found himself swept up in a massive bearhug from behind by Jiraiya, "What the-?"

"That's my boy brat!" Jiraiya exclaimed happily, "Travelling all alone with a cute girl your age, and I didn't even stick the idea into your head! That's what I call taking the initiative!" He wasn't paying attention to the fact that his hug had forced the tray down to Naruto's chest and Janine was taking the opportunity to tag the blonde ninja with coin after coin.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ero-sennin let go! This hurts!" A squirming Naruto yelled as Jiraiya apparently couldn't hear him over his own speech of how everything was coming together and how his training of Naruto would be all-purpose by the time he was done.

One of the Poke Balls on Naruto's waist popped open to reveal Ranbouen who sat in the bar area yawning in a bored manner before looking Jiraiya's way and seeing that hair of his going down the man's back taunting him again. The Growlithe growled and sprang at Jiraiya's backside, biting down on it harshly, "Growl!"

A higher-pitched scream hadn't left Jiraiya's mouth in more than a decade as he let go of Naruto and ran around the circular bar with Ranbouen still attached to his buttocks, "Bad dog! Bad dog! I'm not a rawhide!"

Able to defend himself once more, Naruto kept blocking with the tray until Janine ran out of coins to throw. With a pout she finally calmed down, and just in time too because security was on its way to stop a donnybrook in the pool from all of the thrown money littering the water.

"I feel like I'm forgetting something." Naruto said to himself before Jiraiya rounded the bend again, "Oh yeah." And with that, Naruto smashed the metal tray off of Jiraiya's head as he kept trying to pry Naruto's fire dog off. And down he went… down like a tree, "That's for tricking me into this stupid trip, dattebayo!" Ranbouen made it back to Naruto's side, panting in a satisfied manner as Naruto rubbed the top of his head, "Did I knock him out?"

Some nervous laughter attracted his attention towards Janine who was in the water, "Uh Naruto… we need to get out of here." She said, pointing at the security guards, "Like now."

A confused Naruto picked up the heavy Jiraiya over one shoulder after calling Ranbouen back into his Poke Ball, "Why? We didn't do anything _that_ bad did we? There are Pokémon battles going on all over the place. What's the big deal with throwing stuff?"

"It's not that." Janine said with a sheepish smile, "That special entrance I made us use to get on the ship? Yeah… that was us sneaking in. I don't have tickets."

XxX

(Sometime Later - Vermillion City Docks)

"I can't believe you snuck us onto the ship…" Naruto muttered as he, Janine, and Jiraiya sat on a wharf and watched the S.S. Anne depart to its next stop on its world tour, "I thought it was legit."

A scoff came from Janine in return as she was back in her usual gear that consisted of her mesh bodysuit, dark purple grieves on her wrists and ankles, white tabi socks and sandals, and dark purple sleeveless battle dress, "Do you know how much real tickets on that ship cost? There's not a chance I'm shelling out that much cash for a stupid cruise. No way."

"It's why I was bartending." Jiraiya said with an agreeing nod before letting out a wistful sigh as he too was back in his normal clothing, "…That and the women. Oh, the women. I love Kanto." He then looked over at Janine who was sitting on the other side of Naruto opposite him and extended his hand, "We haven't met. I'm Jiraiya; the greatest male specimen on our side of the ocean and this dumbass brat's guide to all things shinobi in his life."

Ignoring Naruto's indignant cry at being called a dumbass, Janine took the hand of the gigantic man and shook it, "I'm Janine; and I guess I'm Naruto's guide to all things Kanto." She smiled a bit at Jiraiya before sitting back normally and turning on big doe eyes, "…You know, watching out for Naruto's been a lot of work…"

"Oh don't even start." Naruto interjected, cutting her off prematurely before she could try and charm some form of monetary payment out of Jiraiya, "You mooch off of me already as it is. A little help is the least you can do." Janine stuck her tongue out at him and the two started butting heads thereafter, "You want to lose another fight?"

"I'll mess that babyface of yours up, just keep pushing it." Janine replied with a grit to her teeth, "Don't think you can show off in front of your teacher like that's cool with me."

Jiraiya just went out on a limb and assumed that this was how they acted with each other most of the time. Naruto's personality was definitely abrasive, and it seemed like Janine had a strong one to go right up against it. And she was a ninja that hailed from Kanto as well? How interesting. Apparently she didn't use chakra though, but she was confident in fighting Naruto so she probably had her own tricks and whatnot.

As funny as it was to watch the two of them come close to breaking out into a mini fist-fight on the docks, Jiraiya stood up and grabbed the two by the back of their collars to hold them apart as he walked back towards the main portion of the city, "Alright, alright… be nice now. Naruto, this is your first good friend here and we want to make a good impression on the people of a foreign country. You don't want them all to think that all Konoha ninja are a bunch of violent boneheads do you?"

"Fine…" Naruto said, backing down from further arguing. Jiraiya had a point. He and Janine were supposed to be friends, the things they'd been through up to that point would have facilitated that, and picking fights with friends wasn't a friendly thing to do, "So where are we going next then?"

Deferring to her on where to go? That was a change in pace that Janine could have gotten used to. Apparently it was easier to get Naruto to calm down when Jiraiya was around. The responsible adult effect she figured. "Well… now that your teacher is here, if you still want badges, Celadon City is the next closest Pokémon Gym you can go to if we still can't go to Saffron City. I don't know what you guys were planning on doing when you met back up though."

Naruto and Jiraiya who still had the two hoisted off of the ground looked at each other owlishly before shrugging and turning back to Janine, "We weren't planning on anything." They both said simultaneously.

"Great!" Janine chirped, clapping her hands together in a satisfied manner, "Let's head out now then. There's no reason to stay here in Vermillion City any longer now that we're all healed up." She dropped a smoke bomb and vanished from Jiraiya's grasp, a straw dummy in her place, before yelling from further down the pier, "Come on! I'm ready to go!"

Shaking his head in amusement, Jiraiya tossed Naruto over his shoulder and ignored Naruto's indignant cries and the punches on his back and shoulders as he walked after Janine, "By the way kid… we need to talk. I found out what the problem with our Kuchiyose no Jutsu is."

_(Flashback – Jiraiya's Time on Mt. Myoboku)_

_So many days… so many days sitting at the feet of the Great Toad Sage while he sat in that throne… all day every day. He figured that the grandmaster summon was dead at some point, but he really wasn't. He didn't really need to eat as he was so far advanced with his senjutsu that he could subsist off of just that._

_Speaking of senjutsu, Jiraiya just used that time to train and get more in touch with the abundance of natural energy through meditation. Even Fukasaku and Shima got bored of hanging around there so much and left Jiraiya to his own stubborn devices. He wasn't leaving until he got the information he needed._

_All of a sudden the Great Toad Sage's eyes opened and he immediately began speaking, __**"The inability of the shinobi to utilize Kuchiyose no Jutsu in the far gone continent is a very old story Jiraiya."**__ He said as if he hadn't ever fallen asleep in the middle of the original conversation at all. Jiraiya was awake though, and merely opened his eyes, tiredly waiting for the answer to his all-encompassing question, __**"Believe it or not, the summon clans of the Elemental Nations have been to this land that you ask me of…more than one thousand years ago. Before the time of the Rikudou Sennin."**_

_If he hadn't been paying attention before due to being tired, Jiraiya's interest was stiffly set on every word the eccentric and possibly senile but still extremely wise Great Toad Sage, "What about it?"_

"_**Many great creatures of all shapes and sizes, most with incredible power exist there, a select few species with abilities that can challenge those of some of the most powerful clan members of any summon species. Their sheer numbers are incredible. That land belongs to them."**_

_That land belonged to them? Did that mean that it was established that they were meant to be isolated? And who exactly enforced that rule to begin with? This was raising more questions than it was answering, "So you're talking about certain species of the Pokémon right?" _

_He had seen Naruto's Growlithe, and while it was a very impressive creature that could stand against battle toads with a little bit of seasoning and experience, to think that Pokémon existed that could be strong enough to broker borders of operation with the Elemental Nations summon creatures… it was just hard to imagine._

_The towering old toad could sense Jiraiya's skepticism and only the respect that the man had for the main figure of the animals he had a summoning contract with kept him from spouting off his disbelief at it, __**"You can believe what you want to. I'm only telling you legends from back when I was a tadpole myself after all. But until the induction of ninjutsu into our clan's battle arts the creatures of that land were overtly formidable. That was all in the past though. An accord was made between us. Did Minato not tell you about this? He ventured there many years ago and came to us upon his return."**_

_Jiraiya just made a silent 'oh' with his mouth. If only he could remember all of the boring this-and-that things that Minato told him upon the man's return. He really only listened to half of it. When Minato told him that there was no standing military and that he hadn't taken note of any attractive women across the ocean he mostly stopped listening._

(End Flashback)

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Route 11)

No summoning on the Pokémon Continent. That was what the big deal was all about. Though Jiraiya wasn't able to give him specifics, the gist of the very boring two-hour long explanation that the man gave Naruto was that there was some kind of Pokémon somewhere with enough sheer power to block space-time ninjutsu techniques from stretching outside of its realm.

That was the coolest thing that Naruto had ever heard in his life. But Jiraiya had put things in perspective by saying that he couldn't use Kuchiyose no Jutsu as long as they were in those lands, thus he had to be very careful. He was going to try and remedy this situation, but in the meantime Naruto would have to be careful that he didn't get into any kind of jeopardy that required him to have to summon to get out of it.

Naruto's 'eloquent' response consisted of him basically cutting Jiraiya down by saying that without summoning, half of his combat repertoire was null and void. This led to Jiraiya grabbing Naruto in a headlock and giving him a noogie from hell, which then led to an impromptu sparring session between the two that Janine chose to sit back and watch as she tried to get more insight on just what was so different about ninja from across the ocean.

Jiraiya more or less hurled Naruto off of the dirt trail they were walking on into a large and open field after Naruto bit his way out of the noogie and from there they started going at it. Janine had seen pretty much every move that Naruto had to offer, and they were incredible, but Jiraiya didn't seem to be doing anything. He just seemed to be watching Naruto try to attack him, only dodging or negating Naruto's moves altogether, 'Jiraiya really is his teacher. He's not even fighting Naruto back.'

"Come on kid." Jiraiya said, almost bored by the way that Naruto was seemingly fighting the way that he had been on the ship. He was faster and stronger than he had been before they had set out from the Elemental Nations, but from how confident Naruto seemed that he'd do something to blow Jiraiya away he was expecting more, "This is nothing. You've got to show me some strides here or else…"

Naruto had just been knocked down and away again, and had his hands posted on the ground as he was breathing heavily and seemingly trying to pick himself up, "Heh… you're still not taking me seriously are you Ero-sennin? What do I have to do huh?"

Jiraiya let out a snort and bent down condescendingly, hoping it would fire Naruto up, "You have to actually make me work for one." With Naruto's head angled down, he was unable to see the feral grin on Naruto's face that occurred right before a mass of chains sprang up from the ground underneath him, "What?"

"Chakura no Kusari (Chakra Chains)!" Naruto yelled, standing up to reveal chains extending from his hands into the ground below, the same chains that almost snatched up Jiraiya had the man been any less elusive, "How's that? And I'm not done yet!" The chains disappeared as he charged on the location that he saw Jiraiya was going to land at, a Poke Ball in hand from his supply pouch, "Ranbouen, hit me! Katon: Rasengan (Fire Release: Spiraling Sphere)!"

'No way!' Jiraiya thought to himself alarmingly at Naruto and a clone created a Rasengan between the two of them, 'There's no way he found a way to combine the elements! I couldn't do it, Minato couldn't do it, Kakashi couldn't do it! How?'

His answer came when Ranbouen fired a jet of flames from his canine mouth at the Rasengan, sparking it ablaze beautifully to make it look like a burning meteor in his hands. Marveling at it for too long left no opening for Jiraiya to dodge, thus he formed his own Rasengan in one hand and slammed it against Naruto's.

Janine had to cover her eyes as the two chakra-based attacks exploded in a flaming fireball that engulfed them both, "That is _nothing_ like my ninjutsu! That's magic damn it!" She revealed her eyes again and saw that there were patches of the field that were on fire from the backlash of Naruto's jutsu clashing against Jiraiya's. That was new. It never really exploded on contact before, "A-Are you two alright?"

She had plenty reason to be tentative in her question as both Jiraiya and Naruto were standing with their backs facing each other and their arms still outstretched as if they had run past each other. Jiraiya's entire front had burns, but none as bad as the ones on his right arm. They seemed downright horrible. Third-degree even, as his entire sleeve and other bits of clothing that he wore on it were gone.

Jiraiya let out a cough that produced soot and looked down at his twitching arm, "Damn it… and no Tsunade-hime here to patch me up either." He said good-naturedly despite his voice quivering with pain, "That's just great."

Naruto had singes on his body and his Rasengan hand too, but he seemed mostly fine. His eyes were wide and wild as he couldn't believe that in a clash of direct power techniques against Jiraiya he hadn't been outright overpowered and outclassed. In fact as he looked himself over he could honestly say that when it came to his Rasengan against Jiraiya's… "I won?" He turned around and flinched at the sight of Jiraiya's right arm, "Oh Kami, Ero-sennin!"

By the time Naruto had turned and ran towards him with Ranbouen following, Jiraiya had already gone into his travel pack and had pulled out his own supply of medical equipment to treat his burns, "You used your little dog to generate the element to add onto your Rasengan. I can say that I never saw that coming." He noted the look of incredible concern on Naruto's face as he started disinfecting the burns, "Listen up. You can use that. That's a secondary way to develop elemental mastery. Keep having Ranbouen generate fire for the Rasengan on your behalf and eventually you'll get a feel for the fire and you can start working to use it. Same for the rest of the base five."

If Jiraiya wasn't showing concern for his own injuries then Naruto wouldn't either and gave a stiff business-like nod to show that he understood. But wow… if Jiraiya was right then Naruto had something incredible there for himself to eventually learn to use. In theory, using Ranbouen to create fire for Katon: Rasengan would end up with him getting a feel for using the fire element. If it was to work like that for every element…

Whoa… that was kind of staggering to think about. He would have a helping hand to learn multiple elements. Sure, learning how to use them without his Pokémon giving him a boost first seemed like it would be a long and arduous process, but whatever.

"You both are crazy." Janine commented as she watched Jiraiya bandage his wicked burn, wincing at how painful it must have been, "What are you going to do now that you're injured? That isn't going to heal anytime soon!" Was _this_ how an Elemental Nation shinobi fought? She either had to get really good at her hand-to-hand techniques, or she had to incorporate a lot more Pokémon-based attacks into her fighting style.

"Relax." Jiraiya assured Janine before popping a few pills as a painkiller, "I'll just deal with it until I heal. No choice really. Where's the nearest town? My first-aid is kind of spotty, so a doctor should really get a look at me."

With a perturbed sigh, Janine motioned for them to follow her, "Come on… we'll go to the border gate by Route 12. I'm sure that the officers guarding it have a doctor there that can fix you up. If not you're screwed for a while." The life expectancy of a ninja was short that much was certain, but those two seemed to be in a footrace to get to the grave from the way they acted.

XxX

(Route 11/Route 12 Border Gate)

The large building that sat in the middle of the beaten road meant to funnel travelers both on foot and by vehicle did in fact happen to have a doctor to check Jiraiya's burned right arm. Much like the other border gate that they had gone to outside of Saffron City that they were unable to pass through it also had lodgings for travelers to rest, food, a small Pokémon Center. It was really like a rest area on a leg of someone's journey.

While Jiraiya was checked out and treated by physicians, the pair of younger ninja tried to pass the time in their own way on the open roof and scenic garden area of the building.

"Saza-chan, Bonemerang!"

A rapidly spinning bone flew through the air and smacked off of its target; a Pokémon that looked like a sheep with thick messy wool on its body, and a tail with an orange bulb on the end of it that was discharging electricity as it fell to the ground defeated, "Mareep! Damn!" A teenage trainer cried out as his Pokémon was beaten.

"Whoo!" Naruto exclaimed, jumping and pumping his fist as Sazakumoru caught her bone back and retreated behind him now that the battle was complete, "Let's get another one!"

A satisfied Janine took the trainer winnings from the young man that Naruto had just defeated and chuckled to herself as he slunk away dejectedly, "What were you thinking letting a Mareep battle a Cubone? That's a terrible matchup, even if Naruto sucked at this." She looked around at the crowd that had gathered and grinned, "So who else wants to try? Anyone whose money we haven't taken yet. You can fight me or you can fight my friend here, your choice."

Her eyes peered around the crowd only to find that quite a few people that previously had been looking as if they wanted to give fighting either her or Naruto a try seemed flighty about it. Damn, they must have won too many battles convincingly. Now no one wanted to fight them and lose money anymore.

"I want to fight." Through the crowd moved a kid that was their age until he reached the front. He had black hair and a red cap on his head and wore blue jeans, white shoes, a black short-sleeved shirt, and an open short-sleeved red jacket with white sleeves and a white collar, "How about letting me get a try?"

"Sure, whatever you want." Janine said confidently, jumping from her place on the ground onto a light post as a bit of an intimidation tactic, "Make your pick then. Who do you want to fight, Naruto or me?"

"…I can see up your skirt from where you're standing Janine."

"Shut up Naruto! And stop looking then!"

An angry Janine hopped down while holding her short skirt as down as possible and Naruto made sure to be nowhere near where she had intended to land while their mystery challenger looked between the two of them and made his selection, "I'll take the ninja girl." Naruto visibly deflated as this was not the first time that he hadn't been ID'd as a ninja on sight. No one seemed to do that there.

Hearing that she had been chosen for battle, Janine smirked and looked over at her to-be opponent, "Oh, don't think just because I'm a girl I'll be an easy out. That's how a lot of people I've fought in the past have gotten beaten."

"I won't." The spirited young trainer said with an excited look on his face, "The name's Red by the way." He looked over at Naruto when he heard the young blonde curse and mutter something about someone having another name after a color.

"Don't mind him." Janine gestured towards Naruto with her thumb, "He's really weird. Weirder than this actually. Alright, let's battle so I can take your money already! It's just one-on-one, now let's see how you deal with Venonat!" And thus she released her furry purple bug Pokémon. Venonat had been on fire all day long whenever she had been used in battle.

Red tossed a Poke Ball up and down in his hand as he observed Janine's choice and quickly made his own, "Well I just caught him, but why not? I've got to give him a try in a real battle eventually." He threw out his Poke Ball and couldn't help but grin when he saw the look of abject shock on Janine's face, "Yeah… how do you like that?"

An absolutely mammoth green Pokémon with a white colored belly towered over the lot of them with its sheer girth and closed-eye look on its face, "You have a Snorlax and you're going to fight me with it? What's the matter with you?" Janine exclaimed, "We're on a roof!"

Red didn't really care though. His Snorlax was that stunning of a sight? That was awesome, "Heh, Snor hit that Venonat with a Body Slam!"

Red's Snorlax jumped directly at Janine's Venonat, but she already had a trick up her sleeve to start, "Double Team! Don't even let it touch you!" Venonat created several instant copies of herself and it turned out that Snor had jumped at the wrong one, doing nothing but smashing partially into the paved ground of the garden rooftop. Thank goodness that border gate building was so big and sturdy, "Disable!"

Venonat shot a quick almost invisible beam from her eyes that forced Snor's body to quickly glow blue for a moment, so fast that no one even saw it. Red didn't notice it though and quickly cast out his duplicate order, "Those copies aren't there anymore, use Body Slam!" Only for his Snorlax to not move an inch towards following through with the request, "What's wrong?" He had two badges, that should have taken care of any obedience that Snor might not have had worked out of him yet.

"Yes!" Janine proclaimed victoriously with a bit of a vicious grin on her face at her moves working so effectively. As far as she was aware, Body Slam was Snorlax's most devastating weapon and she had just rid herself of that problem in short order, "Stun Spore!" Venonat shook her furry body and from her hair follicles a strange powder flew off onto Red's Snorlax, "I told you to watch yourself."

Red bit his lip in thought as he could see just how difficult it was for his Pokémon to move and without another moment to spare he ran out towards Snor after grabbing an object in a syringe from his pack.

Oh no he wasn't about to cure the Snorlax that Janine had worked her ass off to paralyze. To hell with that, "Venonat use Confusion and get that Parlyz Heal out of his hand!" And on command, the psychic control technique focused in on Red's hand and forced it away from him, "Now take that Snorlax out! Tackle it until it can't see straight!" Time to take advantage of the situation.

And Venonat did just as requested, slamming her body into the significantly slowed down Snorlax again and again, but it was unable to deal it any significant injury. It was just too light to cause any real physical trauma, much to her chagrin. Snorlax was an incredibly durable Pokémon.

Red needed to buy some time, and he had the best move possible for it, "Snor take a Rest!" And just like that, Red's Snorlax fell backwards into a deep sleep. Needless to say, everyone watching had slacked jaws at the action.

"It's sleeping?" Naruto said with a twitching eyebrow, "What kind of move is that?"

A move that healed Snorlax as it slept, and Janine knew it. All that hard work to paralyze it so that she could start chipping away at its durability and it was undone just like that. That really didn't sit well with her at all.

"Venonat, try Confusion!" The furry bug Pokémon tried to use its mental abilities to budge the incredible girth of the Snorlax, but it wasn't going to happen, "Come on, there's got to be something we can do here…"

"Use Sleep Talk Snor." Red said with a confident grin on his face. His Snorlax sat up as if it were sleepwalking and lunged towards Janine's Venonat with a hard punch that threw it into one of the rooftop garden's trees, "Ha, Mega Punch! Not bad for a random move."

With a gasp, Janine ran over to her defeated Venonat and checked it over, fussing over how much damage one attack from the physically dominant Snorlax could really dish out. Naruto watched it happen and just stared at Red's Snorlax as the young man himself gave it a few hearty and satisfied pats on its stomach.

Curiosity piquing his interest, Naruto pulled out his Pokédex and checked it over, _"Snorlax; the Sleeping Pokémon._ _Snorlax's typical day consists of nothing more than eating and sleeping. It is such a docile Pokémon that there are children who use its expansive belly as a place to play."_

The sound of Naruto's Pokédex got Red's attention as he walked over to the blonde and looked the device over, "You've got a Pokédex? Hey do you know Professor Oak too?"

Naruto blinked but nodded, "Yeah. He gave this to me." Red then pulled his own Pokédex out to show it off, "Hey, you've got one too. So that makes me, Blue, that other girl…" He said with a distasteful growl, "…And you. Cool." He thought they were supposed to be kind of exclusive, but that was okay too.

Red frowned at the utterance of Blue's name, "You met that guy too? He takes himself way too seriously doesn't he? What a-." He stopped talking when he noticed his Snorlax walk directly behind him so that he towered over both him and Naruto, "Snor? What's the matter."

Snor seemed to be observing Naruto way too hard for him to be comfortable with it. Naruto moved to the far left and then to the far right only to see that the large rotund Pokémon still had its eyes locked firmly on him, "…What's wrong with your Pokémon? It's looking like I messed with it in the past or something." Red called his Snorlax back into his Poke Ball and Naruto breathed a sigh of relief, though he didn't know why, "Thanks."

"No problem." Red said, looking strangely at his Poke Ball before placing it back on his belt with the others, "Snor's never looked at anyone like that except for when they wake him up. Weird."

"I can't believe I lost like that." Janine stated flatly as she walked back over, Venonat back in her Poke Ball and money to pay Red for his victory in hand, "Here you go. You beat me fair and square." She sounded extremely down and out, but accepting of the loss. That was weird, because Janine didn't seem like the kind of person to accept a battle's negative outcome so easily like that, "…You had a Snorlax… that's completely ridiculous."

As he took the money for his victory, Red chuckled sheepishly at his look on Janine's face clearly put there by his seemingly superior Pokémon, "Well… it was there, it was in the way. What else would any other Pokémon Trainer have done? I caught it."

"Uh huh." Janine deadpanned before grabbing Naruto by the arm and dragging him off, still stinging from her loss, "Come on Naruto. We've got someplace to be."

"We do?" That was the first he was hearing of it. It wasn't like they were in a rush to get to Celadon City or anything. At least he didn't think that they were. She took them to the edge of the rooftop garden and pointed northeast sternly, "Alright." Angry women weren't good for him, they traditionally never had been. Once she hopped on his back piggyback-style he felt the need to speak up though, "Now? What about Ero-sennin though? He's still getting treated."

"We'll come right back." Janine insisted, "We're just going into the woods so it shouldn't take long at all if you do that tree-hopping thing I see you do so much." Well Jiraiya could hang back at that gate station for a few hours. He made Naruto hang around alone on a foreign continent for a little over a month on his own after all. It was only fair, "Now giddyup!" She said, clicking her heels into his sides as if she had spurs on.

Naruto rolled his eyes but ran down the side of the building before vaulting into the tree line on the side of the road, "Do that again and I'll drop you." Naruto dug an elbow into Janine's thigh painfully to get his point across. He wasn't a damn horse… he was a ninja, and a great one at that.

An astonished Red ran to the side of the building along with many other observers that watched Naruto jump down over the edge of the rooftop, "Wow… how'd Professor Oak not tell me about _that_ guy?" He said, scratching his scalp underneath his hat, "I definitely need to have a talk with that old man soon…"

XxX

(A Few Hours Later – Forests Around Route 12)

Janine had been beside herself ever since the loss to Red's Snorlax. It was just almost unfair. She had done everything right in that battle, her tactics were on point to deal with an opponent that had incredible knockout power, but it all got shrugged off and Venonat was defeated with one Mega Punch. It wasn't really a reflection on Venonat's battling ability, as any of her other Pokémon would have been beaten after taking that punch.

She just didn't have anything durable enough to stand up to too much abuse in combat. It was the one blatant knock that she could find on her current party. Naruto's entire Pokémon squad was very durable by nature and he hadn't even tried to put them together that way. Grimer was the only tough Pokémon she had, and that would only go so far later down the line; fighting Lt. Surge showed her that much.

She needed something a little tougher to stand up to the sheer attack power that her opponents would inevitably go against her with. If her enemies would start coming at her with stiffer attack power that she couldn't compare to, as went along with her tricky battle style.

"Why are we here? This is bullshit!" Naruto exclaimed angrily, his face and arms covered in itchy bug bites. Due to the fact that whenever he moved through a forest's trees he was always moving from branch to branch at a high speed he always wondered why so few people chose to travel that way. Sure he had seen a few bug catcher Pokémon Trainers in the copious amount of forests, but that was it. Viridian Forest didn't teach him much because that one had been one of the most mammoth forests he had ever seen outside of the Forest of Death.

Well now he knew why after walking at a reserved pace through a different forest. Once you went a ways past the treeline it was a bug Pokémon's world, and you were just living in it. He didn't know that there were so many of them in other places. Was that how it was everywhere? Holy crap.

Janine's mesh on her arms and legs protected her, and she had a facemask inside of the collar of her ninja battle dress to keep them from biting her face as well, "I need to find a Pokémon with high defense since you won't trade me your Shellder… would you?"

"Hell no! Hogohei's my buddy!"

"That's what I thought." Janine concluded, "And that's why we're here." She turned back and saw Naruto flinch at the sound of a buzz and shook her head, "Come on tough guy. You can take a beatdown from an Electabuzz but a few bugs scare you."

Naruto had a kunai held out for defensive purposes as he looked around, paranoid of his surroundings, "Right before we met I got chased by dozens of Beedrill all the way through Viridian Forest. That wasn't really fun you know." It was almost sundown though, so they probably would have started settling down for the night by then, "We need to go back and check on Ero-sennin."

The old hermit was probably all kinds of pissed off, and even with an injured right arm Naruto still didn't want to set him off. Why oh why didn't Kanto have any damn brothels? If they had those then it would have been so easy for Naruto to calm Jiraya down. Just drop him off and let him run amok for twelve hours and all would be forgiven.

With a sigh, Janine waved him off to leave, "Go ahead then, go back. I'll just stay for a bit longer and I'll follow you… but don't ditch me though. I still want my money from those Moon Stones of ours."

Having never gotten permission to leave that made him feel so good, Naruto gave Janine a playful salute and took off into the tree branches to leave that hell of a mess as quickly as possible, "Alright. Be careful." Jiraiya was going to kick his butt for sure, but he'd probably feel better with that than with all of those bugs. Where was Shino when he needed him?

XxX

(Route 11/Route 12 Border Gate – Top Floor Observatory)

"Ditch me to run off into the woods with a girl huh?" Even with his arm covered in bandages and in a sling, Jiraiya's angry face was still more than enough to get Naruto to back into a corner and crouch down in cowardice. The mental victory of impressing the man with his Chakra Chains and his Katon: Rasengan earlier that day were long gone.

He could try to fight his way out. That arm had to still be tender. But no, Jiraiya wasn't some rank amateur. If Naruto sprang to attack, he could probably smack him down easily enough. He was still only just a genin after all.

What he didn't expect, although he really should have because of who he was talking to, was for Jiraiya to grab him in another bearhug as he cried joyously, "I'm so proud of you! You're spreading your wings and flying kid! Running off with some cutie into the woods for hours? Well done! And you look a mess, she must be some kind of hellcat!"

Naruto cocked his head back and smashed it into Jiraiya's to get him to let go, "Stop saying stuff like that!" Naruto shouted loudly before he noticed that Jiraiya hadn't even registered the hit, "Ero-sennin, how high on painkillers are you right now?"

Jiraiya looked around with wide pupils before smoothing back his hair and shrugging, "I'm pretty up there. So where's your girl?" Naruto's foot found its way to Jiraiya's shin quickly thereafter, "Didn't hurt. Answer the question, I happen to like that kid."

"She's still out in the forest." Naruto quickly conceded and told Jiraiya what he wanted to know. If he couldn't even hurt the man there wasn't any fun in making him pay for saying such things, "I'm not her keeper and she's not mine. Things are working the way they are. It's not like she and I are that close anyway."

Jiraiya moved towards a bench where they had a good view of the nighttime trails leading away from the border gate as darkness began to cover the forested lands, "You don't travel around with someone for a month straight unless you have to if you don't like something about them."

"Oh… I definitely had to travel with her. She's my responsibility. I caught her stealing during a guard mission of mine. I had to keep her from doing it again."

"What a crappy reason. You're so full of it. You could have just ditched her or turned her in if it was that much trouble."

Naruto glared over at Jiraiya but only got sight of the man patting a seat on the bench next to him. With nothing else to really do, Naruto sat down there and looked outside through the large glass windows of the observatory floor, "We're not that close because we can't trust each other that much." He wasn't so slow that he couldn't pick up on the most obvious touch of tension between the two of them, "Whatever she did before we met she doesn't want me knowing about it unless I need to know, and she's just finding out weirder and weirder things about me every day."

Things were alright between them, they definitely could be getting along worse all things considered, but they always seemed to have one eye on each other at all times and they never seemed to give the other their back. The whole Team Rocket thing was more or less a case of the enemy of my enemy instead of something to really bond over.

He was _not_ going to be telling Jiraiya about them either. There wasn't a reason to. They were just a few criminals that he ran into and busted up. He did that kind of thing on missions back in Konoha all the time. Same difference here. Just everyday stuff.

But back on topic though…

Honestly Janine wasn't a bad girl, nor was she a bad friend to have in general. She didn't hit him much at all (comparatively), and when she did he wasn't so deathly afraid of retaliating in some way the way he had been with Sakura back in the village. It was a bit of a tit-for-tat thing between them and she seemed cool with it. She actually seemed to like the show of backbone. Aside from that she was willing to train with him and teach him little things about how the Kanto ninja fought in exchange for little things about how Konoha ninja did so.

Like a little foreign exchange program. Too bad she just couldn't get down the concept of reaching her chakra though, maybe because he was a sucky teacher when it came to technical textbook nuances. It was funny to watch her try, fail, and freak out over it too, so that was some great free entertainment.

As he thought about that last thought, Jiraiya saw Naruto's face twist from a serious expression into a grin before the young ninja snickered a bit at whatever he was pondering. He knew that the whole trusting Janine thing was a big deal to him since Naruto had been burned several times in the past due to prematurely trusting 'friends' like Kabuto, Haku… and even him.

Hey, you shove a person off of a cliff into an unclimbable crevice where no one would know that he even fell and died and that person has every right in the world to not trust you from that day forward.

"Well at times like this…" Jiraiya started to say, resting his good hand on Naruto's head to mess with his hair, "…All you can really do is trust your gut until you get enough of a reason to trust someone else. And your gut told you that it was alright to stick around for this long. Well what does it say now?"

A loud grumbling noise came from Naruto's stomach and put a big frown on his face as he held it, "…That it's hungry."

Stupid brat… Well this little nugget of information was going to fix him good, "You'd better ask it again really fast because you're going to need to be sure. I've got a new exercise to go with your regular training. It's time to go into another clandestine facet of shinobi living."

Naruto didn't like the sound of that, and Jiraiya's grin didn't promise it to be anything good.

XxX

(With Janine – Forests Around Route 12)

Breathing heavily and covered in scuff marks, Janine stood with a proud look on her face with a full Poke Ball in hand, containing a new Pokémon that she had just captured. Overhead her Zubat flew around, still jazzed up from the battle it had just fought to bring it down, "Ha… you might not be a poison Pokémon, but that's okay. There are a few things we can do to fix that later."

Despite it not fitting in with the Pokémon type that she was trained to specialize in, a little diversification never hurt anyone, and what she had just caught was exactly what she had gone out into the forest to find. Its potential for skilled defensive techniques was extremely high.

Her Zubat landed on her arm and Janine stroked underneath its chin, thanking it for a job well done, "If you hadn't flown me out of there when I needed it that thing would have pulled off that Selfdestruct move on me."

"_You think you're strong don't you?"_

A set of shuriken quickly popped into Janine's hand at the sound of the disembodied voice surrounding her in the dark of the woods until she realized that it was her father's voice and her face shifted in shock as her grip on her weapons tightened, "O-Otou-sama? W-What are you-?"

"_I haven't come to fight you. I wouldn't waste the effort it would take to teach you your lesson. I just came to see if the things I've heard from my Boss are true. He says that you and your little friend are possible obstacles to Team Rocket's goals, but I just can't see it. Not from you. You just don't have the ardor to beat me."_

"Just come home already!" She yelled, not knowing which direction he was really in, "Are you really going to leave the Gym the way Viridian City's is? And who else can safely patrol the Safari Zone except for you? What kind of Gym Leader does that? Just walks out on their responsibilities?"

"_I became a Gym Leader for one simple reason, for furthering my own goals. And those goals coincide with those of my Boss. My master. Something you don't have the discipline to understand or even to respect. You showed that much when you ran away from _your_ responsibilities as my apprentice and daughter."_

Janine lowered her stance from her previous preparation for a fight and looked down at the ground, "All you wanted was to turn me into one of Team Rocket; just so you can use Pokémon for those stupid experiments. I'm fine with stealing and some of the other stuff, but I'm not going to exploit living beings for profit. There's no honor in that, it's not hard to understand. What's to respect about that?"

"_I'll tell you one time… do not look for me. I don't care what reason you have, I don't care how powerful you think you are, if you appear in front of me you do so as an enemy of Team Rocket, and I'll kill you like one."_

A bitter sounding Janine put her shuriken up as her Zubat tried to sense around with her sonar to see if she could pick up Janine's father's location. He had to be somewhere close by, "What is that supposed to be, a warning? Some kind of love for your daughter?"

"_You know that you more or less stripped yourself of the title of my daughter when you cut and run. It's not for you, it's for your mother. If I simply killed you without giving you any warning at all… I wouldn't be able to face her in the next life."_

"If you kill your own daughter just to be some criminal's underling you sure as hell won't be going to the same place Okaa-san went to." Janine growled out before turning and flipping her long scarf over her shoulder as she began to walk away with her Pokémon, "When I find you, and I _will_ find you, I don't know what I'll do. I thought I'd know right here, but hearing you speak isn't the same thing as seeing your face. I'll know then, and I'll deal with it then too."

"_For your own sake, and for the sake of your friend, the next time you catch wind of any of Team Rocket's activities you should simply stay as far away as possible. The last member of the Team Rocket Elite Triad isn't going to be as merciful as I'm being now, nor will she underestimate you the way Lt. Surge did… the fool. As if my former apprentice would fall to his sheer bullheaded brute force."_

"Save your _mercy_." Janine dismissed, not wanting to hear the man's voice anymore. She felt a little bit of involuntary pride at how he said that there was no chance that she would have lost to Lt. Surge, but quickly squashed that feeling, dropping a smoke bomb to conceal her movements as she fled… and her tears as well, 'If it comes to that to make you come home I'll bring Team Rocket down around you… and you can hate me if you want.'

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 7: Route 10Power Plant

A simple mission to check that the Northern Kanto Power Plant was still up and running just had to turn into this. They had to check the connection of the power lines from a Pokémon Center further down the route after making sure that everything was just fine with the plant itself. Routine maintenance.

Since when was something routine so damn dangerous?

Minato was warned when given the mission by engineers that he would have been better off bringing a group with him just in case; thus he dragged Genma with him and another shinobi, twenty year old Namiashi Raido, a young man with spiky brown hair wearing the usual Konoha shinobi uniform with green flak jacket and black long-sleeved shirt and pants.

The place was a total dump. It was clear that no one ever went there and it had fallen into great disrepair to the point where the inside was full of all sorts of wild Pokémon. They might as well have been outside for all the protection the building provided.

But there was another reason why they couldn't do that, and it was also probably the reason why no one ever went there. It was because of the fact that the single most aggressive lightning storm any of them had ever seen happened to be raging outside. How they got there in one piece they would never know because lightning had been snapping and popping on the ground all around them.

Time after time they should have been hit repeatedly, but luckily they didn't. Chalk it up to each of them having horseshoes up their asses or something because it was beyond them how they made it out there to begin with.

But some of them had felt that they had been there long enough, "Minato…" Raido said in an impatient voice as the three of them sat on the floor in an open part of the facility, "We've been here for four and a half goddamn days… this storm isn't letting up. Let's go!"

The younger Genma was fighting the urge to grab a senbon and chew on it as his normal habit, because when he did he'd randomly get shocked by wild electric Pokémon that saw it as a target to draw their electricity, "Why didn't anyone tell us this place had a freaky dangerous permastorm going for it? That's the kind of thing you tell people."

"I can't let you go outside Raido." Minato said as if he had been saying the same thing for the entirety of the four days they had been there, "If you go outside you'll get hit by lightning and your heart will stop and all of the other bad things that go with getting electrocuted. This place isn't that bad, just tough it out."

"This place sucks." Raido replied, listing reasons on his fingers, "We can't have anything metal out in the open, we even had to take off our headbands. There's no food in this place and it's boring as hell, all there is to do is train. And I keep getting shocked by those stupid Pokémon that look like Poke Balls."

"Stop picking 'em up then." Genma said, smirking and trying not to laugh, "You'd think after the fifth time you would have gotten the point." Genma himself had even caught one. The pranking possibilities were high with a Voltorb while in Kanto where Poke Balls were common.

Even Minato had to crack a smile at that. Not being used to Pokémon could only be used as an excuse the first time, the other four were inexcusable and thus he deserved to be made fun of for it, "Heh, Genma has a point." They did need to go though. They didn't have enough supplies on them to just hang out there for any longer than a week, and they couldn't just Hiraishin back to Cerulean City, the nearest town, because they still had to go to the Pokémon Center a bit farther once they got out of the plant.

"I'm out of here." Raido said, throwing his hands up in the air as he stood up and started making his way back towards the front door of the plant, "If I have to deal with another friggin Electabuzz I'll crap my pants I swear."

Both Minato and Genma looked at each other worriedly as a telling boom of thunder rang out in the open air. Both of them jumped up and immediately went after Raido, catching up to him at the door, "Seriously." Genma said, trying to block the exit with his body, "Don't go outside. It's really not a good idea."

Raido rolled his eyes and moved the younger shinobi out of the way, "It'll be fine. Man, I didn't think the 'Yellow Flash' would be so… flaky." Both of them ignored Minato crouching in the corner dejectedly at being called flaky by an underling, "Alright. I'm out of here. I'll finish the mission, get the pay, go back to Pallet Town, tell Prof. Oak so we can have a good laugh at you, and you two can stay here and play jump rope with some wires. Later bitches."

With that he opened the door and walked outside, making it ten feet before a massive bolt of lightning struck him and knocked him flat on his back, smoking from the shock.

"Holy shit... that was fast." Genma said with wide eyes as Minato looked outside over his shoulder, "What the hell, it's like that storm was waiting for him to come outside."

"It might have been." Minato said as he stared up at the sky and pointed for Genma to look up with him, "Check it out." What they both saw was the silhouette of a massive bird in the clouds, coursing with electricity even though they didn't have a good view of its physical features, "A Pokémon that can create an entire storm just from its mere presence. Oak better have some good supplies ready for us when I tell him about this one."

On the ground outside, Raido was still laying there staring up at the sky where he could also see the grand lightning bird above in the clouds, "That really hurt." He said weakly and in clear pain, "That burning smell, is that my ass?"

Both Genma and Minato went outside and helped him up before carrying him back inside, "I think that smell is your face." Minato said, making mention of a big electrically generated wound on his face spanning from the bridge of his nose and expanding across his left cheek. That was going to leave one hell of a scar, "Now what did we learn today?" Minato said in a chiding tone of voice.

"That this place is seriously fucking dangerous." Genma said, cringing at the sight of Raido's face, "It's like living in the Forest of Death 24/7. I want to go home, let me fight a war instead of doing this." Sky-high, untouchable lightning birds? Gigantic water serpents that shot beams of death and annihilation freely from their mouths? What was next? It was like the most twisted survival exercise of all time.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe): Male   
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire).

Hogohei (Shellder): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting).

Sazakumoru (Cubone): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Zubat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying).

Venonat: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal).

?: Unknown  
><span>Attacks<span>: Not known yet other than Selfdestruct.

Red's Current Pokémon Team

Poli (Poliwrath) Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Water Gun (Water), Ice Beam (Ice), Seismic Toss (Fighting), DoubleSlap (Normal), Submission (Fighting).

Saur (Bulbasaur) Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Vine Whip (Grass), PoisonPowder (Poison), Leech Seed (Grass), Razor Leaf (Leaf).

Pika (Pikachu) Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Thundershock (Electric), Quick Attack (Normal), Flash (Normal), Thunder Wave (Electric), Substitute (Normal).

Snor (Snorlax) Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Body Slam (Normal), Rest (Normal), Headbutt (Normal), Strength (Normal), Mega Punch (Normal), Sleep Talk (Normal).

* * *

><p><strong>Gah! Life! You cruel, cruel knave you! You just wouldn't let me focus on my end of the term projects! I've got scripts to write, I've got papers that need to be finished, I've got exams that need to be studied for all by the end of the week, and you wouldn't let me do any of it until I finished this chapter!<strong>

**The next week is going to suck… and then the month after that will too, because I need to take summer classes to stay ahead for my last semester of college.**

**Meh, once again you don't care, it just needed to be said.**

**I hope you enjoyed, I'm done here. Kenchi out.**


	9. Ghost of a Chance

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. I spontaneously break into singing the original U.S. Pokémon anime theme song while playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 online, and you would be surprised how many other people join in with me when I do. It is positively glorious.

**Chapter 9: Ghost of a Chance**

* * *

><p>While he had been used to Janine being in a bad mood before, mostly because of something that he had done to antagonize her, this time Naruto was at a loss as to why his travelling companion was so under the weather. It wasn't something he had done, and the battle with Red that she had lost had been two days ago… and she had an out when it came to that. How was she to beat a gigantic Snorlax with her Venonat, it was just a bad matchup.<p>

But she was still upset, though she didn't take it out on him so that meant that it wasn't anger. It was clear however that she didn't wish to speak about whatever had taken her vigor and while a part of him didn't want to push because they weren't really close, he kind of had to.

Naruto wanted them to be actual friends, not just a pair of kids that could trust each other. That was nice, but for all intents and purposes he was still alone in a strange land with powerful and sometimes scary creatures running amok that seemed to outnumber the humans in great quantities. Hell, even the rats on this continent could kill a regular person if it came down to it.

Why did people live here again?

And having a friend was important because once again… Jiraiya had ditched him giving him the directive to venture out on his own the way he had done when he was Naruto's age to explore the world… or the continent. Whatever. Same difference really. Advising Naruto to establish his own points of contact and relationships in this new strange land, Jiraiya took off like a thief in the night from the border gate station with a lengthy note taped to Naruto's forehead for his reading upon awakening the morning that he set out once more.

Apparently Jiraiya had his own mission of severe priority to adhere to, and he didn't want Naruto stepping anywhere near it because it was supposed to be too dangerous.

Right… more dangerous than walking around Kanto normally? That was hard to believe.

Jiraiya had no idea how dangerous it would be just to move through the region, and he still had his right arm suffering from severe burns due to Naruto's Katon: Rasengan. If anything Jiraiya needed him, not the other way around. Compared to Jiraiya, in Naruto's own mind he was a grizzled veteran when it came to dealing with the weird stuff this land had to offer. He was a damn expert.

Sure, it had only been like a month or so, but that was still more time than Jiraiya had spent there so he might as well have been one.

At least Naruto had his directives on how to proceed with his training. Work with his Pokémon that had natural elemental affinities, and working with them while mixing his chakra with their elements would eventually condition his own chakra to the elemental natures. That was an absolutely beautiful shortcut. Dangerous, unconventional, and he was the only ninja that could do it because he was the only ninja with any Pokémon. Right up his alley.

Training plans aside, Route 12 and its beautiful ocean scenery as they walked along perhaps the second longest bridge Naruto had ever seen in his life that was built over the water did little to relieve his soul when it came to the next destination of the two adolescent ninjas. Once they got into the foothills and away from the coast the mood changed again.

Because the simple aura of Lavender Town put a chill into Naruto's soul. He didn't know why, but he always felt like there was something watching him that he couldn't see. The sheer amount of charms and wards placed on the doors and windows of every building in town didn't help either. Janine seemed to be more suspicious than usual as well, so he knew that something or another had to be up.

The granite streets and the gloomy little overcast that seemed to settle over the quiet mountain town seemingly gave way to rather cold people because everyone was fixing Naruto and Janine with rather frosty glares just for being there apparently. The Lavender Town populace were not fans of travelers passing by apparently.

"Why are we here?" Naruto asked his companion as both of them took a small break at a midtown bridge over a foggy river. It was as good a place as any for a rest and a snack as Naruto chose to imbibe with some cup ramen while Janine took in some green tea to soothe herself. She'd had a rather trying last two days, "This town is creepy."

"I agree, but it's the detour to Celadon City so we've got to come through here either way." Janine explained, letting out a relaxed sigh before taking another sip of her tea, "As long as Saffron City's got those asshole guards blocking the city borders from Route 5 and Route 6, we're not going to get anywhere else otherwise. The other way to Celadon is way too roundabout. It would take forever to walk it out around the other way."

Nodding in understanding, Naruto slurped up some more ramen before stopping to chew as he thought of something, "Wait, won't we just get blocked from going any further when we go towards Saffron City from the east?" They still had to pass Saffron to get to Celadon. He could read a damn map too.

"Let me worry about that. I know what I'm doing Naruto." Janine assured him as she refilled her cup with more tea, "Just trust me okay? If there's anyone that knows Kanto in and out it's definitely me."

"I trust you." Naruto replied quickly enough, "I just… meh. Nevermind, don't worry about it."

Oh really? Well now she had to worry about it. Raising an eyebrow as she wondered what his problem was, Janine tapped him on the arm to ensure she had his attention, "Come on, 'meh' what?" She prodded, "Talk to me here. I told you about my dad, and I don't think whatever is bothering you is that personal."

It wasn't, and she did indeed tell him about her criminal father that wanted her to follow in his footsteps. That had to be a bit mortifying to reveal to someone like him and he appreciated the sentiment.

Of course then again who would he really have told about it? The only people he happened to be a bit acquainted with in Kanto aside from her happened to be the Pewter City Gym Leader Brock and Professor Oak who seemed to like him for some reason after they had first met. Then again, the best way to keep a secret is to tell no one; the second best way is to tell one other person if you must. There wasn't any third way, so Naruto wasn't going to let that go unless their lives were at stake.

Fine. It was only fair anyway, and it wasn't any big secret so there wasn't any big deal in talking to her about it, "Well I'm kind of worried because Ero-sennin is gone. He said he was going to try and go do something that was too dangerous for me to go with him, but he's hurt. Just how strong can he be the way he is?"

"You should believe in your sensei more. Has he ever let you down when it counted before?" Janine asked him curiously.

Well not when it counted, he didn't let Naruto down.

Sure Jiraiya shoved him down a crevice once, but he learned how to use the Kyuubi's chakra and learned how to summon toads from it because Jiraiya believed that he could. Sure the training exercises for the Rasengan seemed dumb at first, but now it was his finishing touch when it came to battle. And finally this whole training trip was something that Naruto initially didn't want to do, but now that he was doing it he felt that it was going great.

Other than the life-threatening incidents that probably would have happened anyway had he not gone on the trip to begin with and the extremely lethal wildlife called Pokémon that at times made the Forest of Death look like a national park he was having a blast.

"Not really." Naruto responded, "I mean he's kind of flaky, he drinks, he's a total womanizer, he's goofy, and I'm pretty sure the cheap bastard took some of my money before he left us, but when it really matters Ero-sennin is the man. I trust him more than anyone, period."

"You see?" Janine exclaimed victoriously at having her point supposedly proven before she took note of all of the character flaws that Naruto was able to point out with his teacher, "Man… why does your family let you hang around with that guy? He's got to be a terrible influence." Naruto was triple-tough because of the man, but gosh if he turned out anything like that she didn't want to be around him when he started getting all testosterone-ish if he was the impressionable type.

"He's not that bad when you know what times to not take him seriously." Naruto defended in Jiraiya's stead before shrugging his shoulders, "I don't really have any family anyway. I grew up by myself."

Now that made a touch of sense to Janine. What parent would really let their child freely roam across the vast ocean to a land that there was absolutely no local information about, ninja or not? Not to mention Naruto acted a lot like a child without a normal upbringing. He also didn't seem to be the type to throw a pity party over the whole thing, so that made things less awkward.

"Well if you did have parents I'm sure they'd be worried out of their heads if they knew what you've gotten yourself into." Janine joked amicably, "Fistfighting with dangerous creatures, going up against the biggest criminal organization in the entire region, running around with a very cool if not outright charming star kunoichi like me? Heh, they'd lock you up and never let you go outside again."

"You think so huh?" Naruto asked wryly with a grin peeking through on his face, "I'd probably just sneak out or something and do it anyway. I was a pretty bad kid back in the day and this is a load of fun, so I'd definitely be trying to do it again."

Disobeying his parents seemed like a luxury to him. It might have been kind of cool to try out and experience. Would he still have the stones to do what he wanted if that were the case? Who knew?

For some reason it made the Pokémon training ninja feel good that for the most part Naruto was enjoying himself in Kanto. She initially more or less appealed to his good nature and sense of fair play to get him to travel with her for her own ends (he still had the bit of amber she swiped from the Pewter City Museum), but she was enjoying it too. It was nice to have someone to talk to and travel with for once.

With their lunch being over, Janine stored away her tea materials back into her supply bag and slung it over her back once more, "Well I know it sucks to not have your parents around, trust me I know, but it's what's made you who you are. And that person isn't exactly a bad guy either. If your parents are the exact opposite of my dad the way most parents should be then I know they'd be proud of you."

Aw… well wasn't that nice? Naruto couldn't help but fidget bashfully at the compliment. He hadn't really ever heard anyone say something like that to him before, "Thanks." He managed to get out as he tried to get his cool back, "So, uh what are we doing now? Should we just leave?"

"No, I've got a better idea." Janine revealed, looking around and seeing a pretty big tower in the distance, "Wanna see something cool?" She asked with a grin, "I've got a stop to make."

XxX

(Lavender Town – Pokémon Tower)

"I thought you said this would be cool!" Naruto cried desperately as he clung to the sturdiest object that he could wrap his body around to keep Janine from taking him any further. There was no way in hell. Not a snowball's chance that he was going into the place that she wanted to take him, "What kind of stop is this to make?"

As far as Janine saw he was just being a big baby, "And just what's wrong with coming to this place? I think that the trim on your clothes should be yellow instead of blue…" It would definitely match the streak going down his back that was for damn sure.

"You mean what's wrong with this place aside from it being a skyscraper _graveyard_?" Naruto remarked sarcastically. Clutching tightly to his stone anchor point, he freaked out as Janine tried to pull him off of it again, "I know who you are! You're the goddamn devil ain't you woman? Here to drag me to hell!" Naruto shouted desperately, "All my life I swear I've never done nothing but good! I never screwed over anybody that didn't already have it coming!"

"You'll try to punch an Electabuzz right in the face but you won't go into a little tower? That doesn't make any sense!" A struggling Janine managed to grit out before finding something to inform him of, "You're holding onto a gravestone just so you know."

Naruto let go of said gravestone as if he had been burned and both kids flew through the air as Janine had been pulling him as hard as she could have beforehand. With his only anchored object gone Naruto started grabbing at the grass as Janine dragged him, hoping that he'd grasp onto the one blade of grass that had an iron root, "It's not the same thing! It's not the same thing! I can fight all of that other stuff! How do I fight a ghost? Why would I fight a ghost?"

"We're not fighting anything per se. That's not why we're here. You can try and catch one if you want to though."

"Why the hell would I want to do that either? That doesn't sound any better at all!"

Tired of trying to drag Naruto, Janine dropped his legs and plopped down forcefully on his back before he could get up, getting a measure of satisfaction when she heard the air barrel out of his mouth from her action, "You really don't understand here. Ghost Pokémon are a really special kind you know? They have the potential to be extremely strong." The only type with more inherent battle ability in regards to potential were dragon types, and that was for a completely different reason, "They're perfect for a ninja."

"Then you take your ass in there by yourself and find your own goddamn ghost." Naruto struggled to get from beneath Janine, but she had him pinned right on the sweet spot, "I'm getting as far away from this creepy town as I can."

He never liked it there from the moment they set foot in that town and now he knew why; ghosts. He was going to punt Shikamaru in the stomach for telling him ghosts weren't real and how he kept saying that Naruto was an idiot for believing that they were. Screw all of that, he knew that they were the entire time. Genius his butt.

"Just come with me…"

"No! I draw the line at fighting ghosts! I'm not getting cursed for life! At least anything else would just flat out kill me, but a curse? Or what about getting possessed?"

A cane then knocked both youngsters on top of their heads, sending Janine to the ground off of Naruto's back when she was hit. Both of them rubbed the bumps on their noggins and looked at the old man that had just seen fit to reprimand them with a cane shot. He was an old bald man with bushy gray eyebrows, barely taller than they were, wearing a grey and light purple kimono. In his right hand of course was a cane set on the ground.

"You're disturbing the resting places of the Pokémon." The old man said in a lecturing manner to the rowdy youths, "This isn't a place for fighting. This is place of remembrance."

Janine looked at her palm to make sure she wasn't bleeding from the head before she addressed the old man, "We're sorry. We're not here to disturb anything, I was just led to understand that there were ghost Pokémon here. Is that true?"

The old man nodded and turned towards the imposing Pokémon Tower, "There are. It is a dangerous place that attracts ghosts that can stir the restless souls of deceased Pokémon. It's not a safe place to visit in small numbers."

Small numbers meant two people, clones notwithstanding. Thus Naruto endeavored to walk away since he had no reason to go in until he was caught by the back of his collar so Janine could hold him in place as she addressed the man again, "We're Pokémon trainers." And ninja, but that didn't really hold much relevance there, "Thank you for the help though. We'll be fine sir."

Naruto shook his head frantically and silently mouthed 'save me' to the old man who started looking between the two of them and then the tower.

"You can call me Mr. Fuji instead of sir dear." He stroked his chin in thought before looking at the girl of the duo, "And you're certain of this? Many trainers like yourselves have said the same thing and have come running back out not too long later fearing for their lives. Some others haven't come out at all." He sighed and shook his head, "It's become an incredibly dangerous place."

And with that, Janine smelled money in the water. She had her own reasons for wishing to go inside, but even so…

This Fuji person seemed to care quite a bit about what was going on in that tower. Apparently it was noticeably more dangerous than it had been in the past and he found himself somewhat concerned with it, "Is there anything we can do Elder Fuji?" There was a new client, thus respect was to be shown in order to establish a rapport, "My friend and I are used to handling things like this for a fee…"

XxX

"You're seriously greedy." Naruto said to Janine with a grimace as they walked through the interior of Pokémon Tower.

Rolling her eyes at Naruto, Janine ignored him as they walked past tons and tons of gravestones that filled the inside of the tower, marking the graves of the departed Pokémon from the local area, "You certainly changed your scaredy cat tune after he was through talking didn't you?"

Ghosts were a perfectly logical fear to have… especially when he had basically been assured that they were definitely real. Coming from a very superstitious land like the Elemental Nations left Naruto very wary to tangle with the supernatural.

But once again Naruto suffered from a touch of the hero-syndrome. Everything was always his problem, every battle worth fighting was always his to get involved with and fight. And when Mr. Fuji told them of his issues with being unable to attend to the gravesite of his beloved Doduo due to the unexplainable increase in danger that the Pokémon Tower carried.

"I normally wouldn't ever, ever, ever step foot in a place like this unless I had to." Naruto revealed, not really surprising his companion in Janine, "But something about that old man… I don't know, he just seemed too nice for me to leave him alone."

"You're seriously a softie for a good sob story." Janine told him, echoing his earlier comment on her being greedy, "That's why my hard-nosed capitalistic spirit is needed in this team-up. Otherwise you'd have wound up doing this anyway for free."

While that usually would have started an argument that probably could have been heard all the way on the top floor, today Naruto just didn't feel like it. Now that he knew for sure that ghosts were real he always felt like there was something grabbing at the back of his neck. He had to make a clone to walk back-to-back with him just to curb his own paranoia, "Ah, that's much better…"

Naruto was so weird. Still, if it shut him up she would let his clone literally watching his back slide as they ventured farther inside. They had made it to the third of seven floors and though the interior of the building was rather foggy with a heavy atmosphere that they could both feel, nothing had happened yet.

Swearing he could hear eerie noises that weren't coming from his imagination, Naruto and his clone looked absolutely beside themselves. He barely trusted himself to watch his own back. A damn shame that.

"Why is it so foggy inside of a building?" Naruto asked suddenly as he was getting sick and tired of the eerie atmosphere. Things in fog and mist never bid particularly good tidings for him from past experience, "We're indoors."

"I don't know. Ask a Pokémon professor that studies the environment or something." Janine replied as she tried to focus her own senses to make sure that they didn't get snuck up on by something nasty. The old man Fuji said that trainers had been killed inside of the tower, well she wasn't planning on adding herself to the body-count, "Just keep your eyes open while we search this place."

That was the big plan? Skulk all over a noted area where there were ghosts? No, no, no, "Search for what?" Naruto asked belligerently, his clone actually stopped watching his back to share in his glaring pattern at the girl, doubling up the effectiveness of it, "What's here? What are we looking for?"

"We'll know it when we see it."

"We don't get to see ghosts! They're ghosts!" Both Naruto and his clone yelled in unison, getting Janine to cringe at the volume and timbre of his voice as the original Naruto continued his gripe, "You don't see a ghost until it's too late and BAM! You're cursed!"

She was going to curse him if he yelled like that again, that was for certain, "What kind of a ninja yells in a situation like this? You're just begging for something bad to happen you dummy!" Without a second thought the two began to butt heads and push back and forth while Naruto's clone was left to just watch the ongoing spat. It wasn't as if it had to get involved just because his creator wanted to argue, "You shouldn't be scared of a ghost, you should be scared of me if we wind up botching this easy detail because you're shaking in your sandals."

"You'd better hope we don't have to run from something." Naruto hissed, narrowing his blue eyes at Janine from their close proximity, "Because right now I'm pretty sure I'd trip you to get away. Actually, I'd probably trip you even if we were going to get away anyway."

That actually got Janine to back off from the surprise of the venom behind the statement, "Really?" She looked somewhat hurt by the brazen statement. They'd argued and thrown some nasty insults back and forth since they'd met, but that one actually sounded legitimate.

Realizing that what he said was actually really harsh and not something that people that had brushes with death should joke about, Naruto's stance softened and he looked a bit mortified, "Well… no. I just seriously don't like this place. Sorry. I would never leave anybody behind like that."

Janine held up two fingers now that things seemed to be settling back down, "Two hours. We'll look around for two hours. If we can't find anything then we'll leave and go back to Elder Fuji. He has to pay us s_omething_ for trying even if we don't find anything so that should be good enough. Deal?" Naruto looked to be considering it for a moment, but before he could open his mouth to answer a hard tug came onto the back of Janine's hair, "Oww!"

A stunned Naruto watched her get yanked by her spiky ponytail a few feet before she fell onto her backside. The strange action caused him to silently tilt his head in confusion as she rubbed her scalp. He then felt the need to run as she quickly affixed him with a glare and got back up. He was too late to actually do anything and she was in his face right then and there.

"I thought we were working things out! Why'd you have your clone pull my hair?" Janine shouted at Naruto, pointing at his clone over on the side who was just as confused as the original was, "That's some serious juvenile crap Naruto!"

"I didn't make my clone do anything." A still confused Naruto explained, trying to calm the raging kunoichi down before bad things happened, "He was standing right there the whole time. He never moved a step."

Janine turned an evil eye at the clone who held its hands up disarmingly to illustrate that it had absolutely nothing to do with whatever pulled her down by her hair. It might have been just a chakra copy of the real Naruto, but that didn't mean that it wanted to get punched or kicked or poisoned… or whatever it was that Janine would have done to it since she knew it wasn't real.

Raising an eyebrow as neither Naruto nor his clone had seen fit to be the one to pull her hair, and none of them had any Pokémon out to do the deed either, Janine's countenance dropped into an expression of grim understanding as to what was going on, "Ugh… Naruto, whatever you do just don't yell okay? There's a ghost here."

Naruto's eyes went wide and his mouth opened to quickly disregard Janine's request to not yell, but she knew that he pretty much would and quickly moved behind him to hold his mouth shut. Sadly she couldn't make copies of herself, because Naruto's likeminded clone yelled too and there was no one to cover its mouth.

As Naruto's clone continued to yell out loud, a creepy, shrieking cry only forced it to turn up its volume higher as the ghost in question appeared right beside the doppelganger. The ghost was shrieking, Naruto's clone was yelling, and Naruto himself would have been joining in had Janine not seen fit to cover his mouth to keep him from doing so.

The ghost next to Naruto-clone that was shrieking seemed to only be doing it for fun, delighting in the fear elicited from the duo of blondes. It was a dark bluish-green creature with a small spectral body, a red jewel-studded necklace, flowing hair looking tendrils on its head with pink tips, and large yellow eyes with red irises. Like a chibi banshee.

From the look on the ghost's face it seemed to be rightly enjoying itself as its red necklace lit up and drew some kind of red energy into it from both Naruto and his clone. It didn't seem like it was there to hurt them at all.

Janine pulled Naruto's Pokédex out of his pocket and popped it open, keeping one hand over his mouth to keep him from screaming until she held the device down in front of his face, "Naruto. Naruto? Naruto stop yelling and listen to the goddamn Pokédex!"

"_Misdreavus; the Screech Pokémon._ _Misdreavus frightens people with a creepy, sobbing cry. The Pokémon apparently uses its red spheres to absorb the fearful feelings of foes and turn them into nutrition. It loves to watch the people it scares."_

Naruto stopped screaming even though his clone continued, with the Misdreavus hovering around it in fast circles, keeping the clone frozen as if there were a swarm of bees flying around and any sudden move would wind up badly for it, "Wait, this thing is a Pokémon." Eventually Naruto's clone had enough screaming and dispelled itself much to the relief of everyone's ears, "That's so creepy."

"Well it is a ghost Pokémon, so yeah it should be creepy." Janine said as she finally saw fit to let him go. For some reason he was calm, something that she didn't understand, "Hey, weren't you freaking out the entire time about getting cursed or whatever it was?"

Naruto blinked before turning towards Janine with a shrug, "Well just look at that thing. Now that I've seen it, how can I be scared of that? It's kind of cute." The Misdreavus appeared behind Naruto suddenly and shrieked into his ear for fun, getting him to jump with a start before turning to glare at the close-up ghost, "Don't do that!"

Yeah, cute. But this didn't seem to be very dangerous.

And then Naruto started jumping around trying to grab the Misdreavus as it seemed to taunt him by floating just out of his range to snatch it, smirking the entire time in good humor at Naruto's expense.

Definitely not dangerous enough to end up with several trainers being killed after going inside.

"That's it." Naruto held up a Poke Ball in his hand and pointed right at the Misdreavus who seemed to be amused by messing with Naruto, "You want to play? That's fine with me, because I play like this." He quickly jumped at the ghost Pokémon with a kick in mind but only drifted right through its body harmlessly.

"GHOST!" Janine shouted firmly for Naruto's benefit, to get it through his head, "When in the history of ever have you ever heard of anyone kicking a ghost Pokémon to beat it? Fight smarter! Don't try using normal attacks like that!"

"I've never heard of a ghost Pokémon period, so shut the fuck up!" Naruto replied heatedly, getting a raspberry blown in his direction from Janine before he decided that he was definitely going to catch this one, "I can still beat it somehow, just not by hitting it with punches and stuff, right?" He asked as he pulled out a second Poke Ball that contained one of his team members.

Still though, a ghost that he could defeat in a fight. That was his kind of ghost.

'He's going to try and catch it isn't he?' Janine thought to herself. Naruto had caught other Pokémon out on the trail and in the forests when he had felt like it, but he never added on to his current party of four because once again he didn't feel like it. Even if she did keep telling him that he'd probably want the maximum six he could carry at the nearest opportunity.

Well if he wasn't asking for help after his little outburst telling her to shut up she wasn't going to help him out. She was just going to see how he did.

From one of Naruto's Poke Balls burst out Ranbouen who yawned sleepily and looked around, having been roused from a nap inside of his ball to battle. Only after getting his bearings did the fire dog understand that he was supposed to be in a fight and assumed the appropriate position, growling in a low stance at Misdreavus.

"Sorry buddy." Naruto apologized, not knowing that he had woken his first Pokémon from his slumber, "Are you ready to go though?" He got a resounding bark of affirmation from his Growlithe that told him all he needed to know, "Alright then, Ember!"

Ranbouen opened his mouth and fired a rapid straightforward barrage of heated sparks at the Misdreavus who quickly realized that playtime was over and dodged the attack only to fly in the direction of a Naruto attempt to ambush it with a punch. A very ineffective punch.

Janine palmed her face from the sidelines but kept quiet. Didn't they just go through that whole thing? He wasn't going to be able to beat up a ghost Pokémon like he tried to beat up everything else.

A taunting look graced the face of the Misdreavus once again as it drifted away from Naruto to return its attention to the more present and mounting threat at the moment, Naruto's Growlithe, "Mis-Mis…"

An attempt to goad the hotheaded Ranbouen into attacking almost worked from the annoyed way he growled at his ethereal foe, but Ranbouen stayed obedient in waiting for Naruto's next command.

Even as Misdreavus's red necklace glowed purple. It created four silhouettes of itself that it fired at Ranbouen, forcing the dog to dodge or suffer the consequences of being hit. All the while, Ranbouen never attacked in return because Naruto had never given the order to do so.

Naruto had taken to planting himself on the ground, cross-legged with his arms folded and his head down in a thinking position right in the middle of the battle to figure out just what he was going to do if physical attacks didn't work and Misdreavus could just keep dodging Ranbouen's special attacks like Ember.

And Janine just couldn't take it anymore. It was like trying to watch someone attempt to clap with one hand, "For the love of… use Bite you remedial student!" Did he really not know that much about Pokémon after roughly two months?

He had an excuse though because to his defense he had never run up against this kind of Pokémon before.

"_You're_ remedial!" Naruto shouted back at Janine, "Didn't you just say I can't touch a Ghost? What makes you think Ranbouen can?"

"Just do it!"

"Fine! Ranbouen use Bite!"

He issued the command to shut Janine up, and not because he thought it would work. But then Ranbouen smirked and launched himself through the air, actually snapping his jaws down on the hair of the Misdreavus that tried to avoid the attack but wound up being caught anyway.

Naruto looked stunned that it worked, but wasn't willing to look a gift horse in the mouth as Ranbouen began whipping the Misdreavus around like a chew toy before he finally let it go and sent it flying. He then sat on his haunches, panting happily as he looked at Naruto while the wild Misdreavus seemed stunned at the sudden attack.

"Um… Fire Wheel?" Upon receiving his order, Ranbouen charged at his enemy and barked out fire around his body in the form of a circle as he plowed into the Misdreavus and knocked it down one more time with authority, "Alright then." A confused Naruto once again decided to go with the flow and threw his Poke Ball at the downed ghost.

As the Poke Ball began to shake with Misdreavus trying to struggle, Janine walked up to Naruto with a raised eyebrow as she leaned down to pet Ranbouen, "You're still as green as a blade of grass at battling with your Pokémon. You're lucky this guy here is so tough."

"Why do you think he's tough?" Naruto muttered to himself as his Poke Ball stopped shaking and he walked over to pick up his most recent capture. Ranbouen had been an injured runt Growlithe when Naruto found him and proceeded to train him up. Naruto was the reason his Pokémon was a lean, mean, fighting machine.

Janine could feel that she had offended him as she let Ranbouen playfully bite down on the grieves on her wrist and shake her arm around, "I'm not saying that you're not a good fighter. That's just the thing. I'm saying that you are a good fighter, and that's what's carried you through so long with you knowing next to nothing about Pokémon. You're just so hard-headed that you can just wing it. But you seriously need to learn more because what you did just now with that Misdreavus was embarrassing."

A frown spread across Naruto's face. He had read as much of that starter book that was given to him after he had gotten Ranbouen and he just couldn't take it anymore. Most of it went in and out. He probably still had it though… somewhere, "It wasn't that bad right? I know better now. I learn better on the fly anyway."

Yep, nothing made information stay with you better than having a few deadly objects hurled your way while it was being drilled into your brain. That was how he learned most of his life lessons.

His learning on the fly had better not get them killed. That was all Janine had to say on the matter, "…Let's just go already. We've wasted a ton of time here."

Naruto looked at Ranbouen with a shrug as he returned the Growlithe to his Poke Ball and followed behind, his previous apprehension towards dealing with ghost Pokémon now gone after capturing one for himself.

But what the hell were they wasting time instead of doing? It wasn't like searching that place had a time limit to it. Whatever. Maybe Janine was just taking this whole thing seriously?

Again, why?

XxX

(Top Floor of Pokémon Tower)

Upon reaching the top floor, Naruto had to take a step back in disarmament, "Whoa! What the hell happened here?" On the floor there was a large purple cobra twice his size laying on the floor cut clean in half, bleeding freely. Not too far from where it was standing, Naruto saw the boy he had met the other day, Red, standing by a small blue reptile-looking creature with four legs and a large green bulb on his back, "Hey, I know you."

Red blinked upon hearing the non-hostile voice and then noticed the pair of people he had met not too long ago miles and miles away, "Hey, you're that guy that wore orange. And there's that girl that I beat with Snor." Janine quickly began gnashing her teeth at the topic of her decisive loss that was still fresh in her mind, "What are you two doing here?"

"Looking for what's making this place so dangerous." Naruto explained, taking great care to step over the fallen massive cobra without getting any blood on his sandals. He'd seen bigger, but he really wasn't a fan of snakes at all, "An old man asked us to do it. He talked about people disappearing in here." Now that he looked at Red up close and the Bulbasaur at his side he could see that they looked rather roughed up, "What happened to you?"

"What was making this place so dangerous." Red answered with a sheepish laugh, "Team Rocket was doing things from inside of this tower. One of their leaders were the ones making the creepy supernatural stuff happen."

"Oh no, not you again."

Naruto turned towards the sound of the person that seemed rather unhappy to see someone and he grinned at the sight of Blue, "Hey, you're Professor Oak's grandson right? It's been a while!" Apparently seeing a somewhat familiar face was not such an enjoyable occasion for Blue.

Standing next to him as he palmed his face at being spotted by that weird kid from across the sea was a dark orange bipedal lizard with a with a tail tipped off by a harshly burning flame. It had very sharp claws on its hands and feet and a horn-like protrusion on the top of the back of its head. A pretty mean-looking Pokémon to say the least, especially since it had blood on its claws probably from cutting that big purple cobra in half.

Blue simply returned it into a Poke Ball and tried to look as casually nonchalant as possible, "I didn't know you were still in Kanto. I thought you would have sailed home already." It was kind of hard to look nonchalant when he looked just as bad off as Red did. He was even paler to boot. Whatever they had just done must have been pretty tough.

"Nah, I like this place too much to go home so soon." Especially since Naruto was supposed to be there for three years, and he only knew of one ship that would know how to get him home, "What the hell happened here?"

While catching up with the two trainers that he had met since arriving in Kanto (or at least with the one that cared one way or the other in Red), Janine had kneeled down by the bifurcated snake with her eyes narrowed and her lips twisted in a glower, 'This is Otou-sama's Arbok.' She knew it without a doubt. No one kept a poison Pokémon that was as well raised as her father did, 'Was he here?'

No. Not personally anyway. If he had been then there would be no way that Red and that other boy that Naruto apparently knew would have survived the fight.

"Well we're done here Naruto." Janine said, standing up abruptly from where she had been observing the fallen Arbok, "They solved what was wrong in here so we're not going to be able to get paid." Her sudden shift in mood surprised Naruto as he was more used to the playful, headstrong girl that he'd been travelling with, "You two can tell Elder Fuji that we're sorry we weren't able to help him out."

Once again, Naruto watched her begin to leave the tower by herself with a gait as if she had a purpose to fulfill.

XxX

(Route 8 – Outskirts of Lavender Town)

"Hey." Naruto called out as he managed to catch up to Janine after she had already blown town in a hurry. He almost lost her after she left Pokémon Tower. But she still kept on walking forward toward the west, "Hey!" Eventually Naruto shouted, tired of trailing her back onto the trail of the wide open fields, "Hold up a second, what's the rush?"

He would have figured that even if they hadn't directly solved the problem in Pokémon Tower themselves she would have tried to get some kind of payment or compensation out of Mr. Fuji for their efforts to try and do something.

But instead she had just made haste to exit Lavender Town. It was too late to get a decent jump on travelling to the next location, Naruto knew that. Naruto knew that Janine knew that. But they had left anyway.

"I've got to catch him." Janine muttered with her fists tightened at her sides. Her back was still to Naruto as there was a look of determination on her face, "I knew he would be here, and I missed my chance."

"Catch who?" Naruto asked, walking closer now that he had finally gotten her to stop walking away.

"It's your fault…" Her voice barely audible, Janine's hands were shaking in suppressed fury before she turned around and threw a punch at Naruto. Caught off guard he was barely able to comprehend what was happening before he instinctively dodged, only letting the tough grieve around her wrist and the back of her hand graze his cheek, "You and your crap outside! If we'd been a bit faster I might have gotten there before those two beat dad's Arbok!"

Naruto rubbed his scraped cheek, muscles tightened in alarm from the sudden attack, "What? Your dad? That was his Pokémon?" He then caught on to a reason to be offended, "Wait, you're blaming me? How was I supposed to know? What the hell was your dad doing there anyway?"

The two began to circle each other on the large dirt road of the route, one intending to be aggressive and the other responsive. Naruto had by now dropped his pack onto the ground in anticipation of the pending aggression and Janine had done the same as she had been the one to initiate it.

In her eyes there was present and evident anger and frustration, though it wasn't all at Naruto. It was a compound of things. Meanwhile in Naruto's own eyes there wasn't a hint of backing down that could be seen in them. While it had been manageable before, for the last two days since spending the night at the Route 12 border gate station she'd been gloomy, agitated, and had been battling up and down the route with trainers they had come across at a greater rate than he had been doing.

Finally choosing to throw herself at him in attack, Janine did her best with her personal melee combat skills to pummel Naruto with punches and kicks, but he was seemingly better as he just parried everything and shoved her away each time, "That was a Team Rocket base of operations! That's why so many people that went inside were getting attacked and never came out! I knew it was my dad's pattern if no one had figured it out by now!"

Ghost Pokémon could be pretty nasty, but not at such a consistent rate the way Mr. Fuji had been talking about.

Letting a straight punch fly past his head over his shoulder, Naruto turned and grabbed her arm before slamming her hard to the ground by it, "Why didn't you just tell me that from the start!" Naruto shouted as her body hit the trail.

The second she hit the ground Janine's legs got to work and kicked Naruto away so that she could roll over to her belly and get back up, "Because it's not your business! Don't act like you're my friend! You're only travelling with me because you think you have to be responsible for me!"

Naruto had been backpedaling from being suddenly kicked away but regained his footing with an angry vein forming on his head at what she had said, "You're so stupid!" He yelled at her as he jumped in to deliver a punch.

"Pineco, Protect!"

A green energy barrier formed around Janine's entire body and foiled Naruto's attack completely, negating his attempt to punch her. In return she got back onto her feet and lunged at Naruto to take advantage and immediately deliver a hard punch of her own to Naruto's jaw that knocked him down.

Landing on his backside with his face stinging, Naruto was looking at her with a pained cringe to see a blue pinecone with red eyes and a single horn on top of its head. Did she catch that Pokémon recently? He hadn't seen that one yet.

Janine picked up her Pineco and hooked it onto the back of her clothes so that it would stay attached to her so that she could use the rather immobile creature in battle freely, "You're really telling me that you'd still be here if you didn't think you had to be?" Janine asked with a scoff as Naruto got back up, "Don't lie to me like I'm an idiot."

"That's what I'm telling you." Naruto declared as he got back to his feet, still ready to fight, though for what he didn't know, "It's not just that. Haven't we been having fun too? Haven't we been helping each other out? I'll get it across even if I have to slap some sense into you myself."

Janine just fell into her fighting stance and didn't falter, even though she hesitated for a moment when he brought up that they had indeed been very friendly to one another. And they had been, at least since leaving Cerulean City, "Don't think I'll let you win again. I've been around you enough to know what you fight like." She saw Naruto's fingers move towards the seal for Kage Bunshin and quickly used another Poke Ball to prepare for that action, "Zubat, Supersonic!"

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" The moment fifteen other Naruto's appeared on the trail, there was no chance to coordinate any action. Janine's Zubat emerged and began emitting waves of sound that confounded just under half of Naruto's clones, confusing them into attacking their own ranks, causing a brawl amongst them that began clearing the ranks.

Using the confusion she swept through them and defeated them on her own until the original was left in the midst of the large cloud of smoke. He rushed forward to meet her again, prepared to punch her lights out once more and a smirk came to her face. He was going to try that again? What was wrong with him, didn't he learn his lessons? "Pineco use Protect again!"

And once again, Naruto's punch never made contact due to the barrier that went up protecting Janine's body and her Pineco completely from harm. But she didn't know why Naruto was smirking too. His assault had just failed and she was about to brutally counter the way she had the first time.

"Hogohei hit her with an Aurora Beam!"

Before she could move her body to respond, from Janine's blind spot she wound up being blasted in the side with a multicolored beam that she never saw coming. As she was knocked to the ground and skidded off of the road down a small hill into a field, she was very thankful that she had Pineco to disperse some of the impact of the move or that could have been far more severe in the consequences garnered.

Slowly getting up, she looked back up at the trail to see Naruto leaning against a large dull purple shell covered in small blunt spikes with six long spikes spaced out evenly. Inside of that shell was a second smaller grey shelled layer that was also open to display a black grinning head figure inside, a sharp horn jutting out directly above it.

Naruto's Shellder was now a Cloyster? No way. That morning back around the waterways of Route 12 Hogohei had still been a Shellder and he hadn't had his sole water Pokémon out since they had entered Lavender Town that day.

"Hogohei evolved?" Janine questioned as she stood up off of the ground, grass stains and dirt covering her clothing and face, "But you can't evolve a Shellder into a Cloyster without a-."

"-Water Stone?" Naruto finished for her as he knocked on Hogohei's new even sturdier new shell, "Yeah I know. You ran out of town so fast you didn't even stop for Mr. Fuji to thank us for trying to help. He gave me a Water Stone and gave you a stone of your own too if you wanted it." If she still wanted a fight she could have one now, "Don't try it. I've got the high ground."

She was trying to charge back up the hill with a running start, no fear of retaliation in her movement whatsoever, "Yeah? Well I've got two Pokémon out right now genius. Wing Attack!" Zubat had been intentionally flying out of sight since the earlier successful Supersonic attack, but at that point made its presence felt full-on.

Naruto was bashed hard in the back by her Zubat's power-charged diving wing strike and was knocked down the hill that Janine had just taken a spill down previously. As fortune would have it though, the trajectory that Naruto fell at had caused the two youngsters to collide into one another headfirst with enough speed and force to render both unconscious.

Both fell and lay sprawled out in the grass as the mid-afternoon sun beamed down on the two of them. Their Pokémon gathered around their unconscious bodies in worry and confusion as to what to do with and for their respective masters.

XxX

(With Jiraiya – Pallet Town – Professor Oak's Laboratory)

He'd link back up with Naruto after he found himself a lead, but for now Jiraiya needed to figure out how to fix his inability to summon. That was a major problem. He was quite certain that the only reason Tsunade allowed them to go so far from Konoha was because his toad summons could keep up contact with home while they were gone.

Not now. He had sent word back with the toads when he had taken himself to the home of his contract creatures, but he wouldn't have that option again for a _long_ time. Those merchants that had carried him to and fro for good pay were going to stock up on goods and then sail home to trade.

So he had to investigate, and what better place to start than with the smartest guy he knew in the region? Or the smartest guy that Naruto knew in the region because they hadn't been formally introduced yet.

So after splitting off from Naruto and getting a map of his own he blazed a trail through a series of shortcuts including Diglett Tunnel to return to Pallet Town over the course of two days. Last time around he didn't get a chance to explore, but this time his travels led him to the large laboratory on the hill that was the border to Professor Oak's massive property. Luckily the man was one for conversation.

Taking Jiraiya on a tour of where the multitudes of Pokémon were kept in open environments, Oak was more than willing to speak with someone he had heard about years ago from one of the most memorable people he had ever met, "I've heard a lot about you from Minato. It's a pleasure to finally meet you I have to say." The lab coat clad professor stated to his similarly aged counterpart.

"The pleasure's all mine." Jiraiya returned, marveling at the sheer amount of Pokémon that had made the open fields near the lab their stomping grounds. This land was amazing, "Thanks for keeping him out of as much trouble as you could have all those years ago, and thanks for helping my brat get his crap together before he started making a mess of things here too."

Oh if only Jiraiya knew just what Naruto had actually gotten into that he knew nothing about.

"Like father like son I'd imagine." Oak said, locking his hands behind his back as they walked, "Why doesn't he know? That Minato is his father. That name Uzumaki is the same name of Minato's then girlfriend, plus the way he looks… I thought Minato had just done his transformation technique to hide his true age or something when I first saw Naruto."

"You didn't say anything to him about it?"

"He mentioned nothing about it. If he doesn't know yet then I don't believe it to be my place to say such a thing, especially with no proof and with no real connection to him."

Jiraiya nodded with a frown, "Well you're right. And now that we're here there's no reason to keep it from him. Maybe he'll get a kick out of it?" After all, Minato was the first one to do preliminary studies of the land… by accident of course, and now Naruto was doing the same for more, "Or maybe he'll just kick me instead?" He idly rubbed his heavily bandaged arm that was still badly burned and in a sling from Naruto's Katon: Rasengan. That kid was getting stronger.

"Well hopefully your injuries heal first so you can defend your face if he does." Professor Oak joked before they stopped at a rock by a large lake that housed many aquatic Pokémon, "While it's been nice to make your acquaintance I don't believe a man like yourself stops in just to say hello to the friend of a friend. So what may I be able to do for you today?"

Allowing Oak to first take a seat, Jiraiya observed the calm waters before deciding to just lay his cards on the table. Anything else would have seemed suspicious, and if this man was able to put together that Naruto was Minato's son without anyone even saying anything he was sharp enough to pick up on when things were being kept from him.

Jiraiya needed his cooperation or else his own mission probably could and would have just ended right there.

"I need your help for something that plagued Minato and his army even back when they were here." Jiraiya explained, going through his hand-seals before slamming his palm onto the ground only for nothing to happen, "That should have allowed me to summon a creature from a faraway place by way of a space-time jutsu, but something in this land blocks our techniques like this from working beyond the limits of it. Minato couldn't use Hiraishin to return home from here."

"What makes you believe I can assist you with figuring out a way to solve this problem of yours?"

Moment of truth time, "Because my toad elder informed me that a species of Pokémon could be the cause behind it." Jiraiya said with a calculative stare at his fellow white-haired elder statesman, "You're a professor that studies Pokémon. There has to be something you know of that can help me."

Professor Oak had to concede that point. There wasn't anyone in Kanto that could tell him any more information about Pokémon than him, but he still had to burst Jiraiya's bubble, "I'd like to help you, but the world of Pokémon is a vast one. There are more Pokémon than even I know of, in different regions all over the continent. I wouldn't even be able to tell you where this rabbit hole even begins."

"Anything at all could help. Give me the most farfetched legend that you can possibly think of." Jiraiya told him, not feeling deterred from discovering what he needed to find out just from one setback, "Don't hold anything back no matter how absurd or how much of a long shot it seems to be. I can handle it."

Well… he did teach Minato. And that man swore by Jiraiya as the greatest man he knew. Such praise from someone like Namikaze Minato should have been heeded. Maybe he would be alright. He'd probably be dispatching him on a wild goose chase, but he _did_ assure him that he could handle it.

"In that case I think the most blatant example of what you're asking about, something with the potential to do what you're asking me about that has been referred to in Kanto archives would perhaps be the Pokémon Mew. Do you know of it?"

"…Professor, I don't know about any Pokémon… at all. Talk to me here."

XxX

(With Naruto – Sundown – Route 8)

A splash of water hit Naruto right in the face and abruptly woke him with a start from his rousing slumber in the open field. Looking around rapidly his eyes rested on the source of his impromptu shower staring at him from within a very sturdy shell, "Damn it Hogohei… did you really have to Water Gun me?" Naruto asked, staring at his newly evolved Cloyster, "…I guess you don't grow out of that."

Did he really get knocked out from clacking heads with Janine? He knew that she was pretty tough but hardheaded too?

Looking over to where he could feel other presences, he saw that Janine had sat up as well, surrounded by her Zubat and Pineco the way his Cloyster Hogohei had been waiting by him.

Without saying a word they both jumped back up to their feet and got ready to fight yet again until Hogohei closed his shell around Naruto's ankle, tripping him up from rushing forward. Likewise for Janine's Pineco who rolled in front of her intended path and tripped her so that her Zubat could try and keep her down by landing on the top of her head, "What the-?"

Naruto tried to pull his leg free, but it was like being caught in a bear trap, "Hogohei what are you doing?" He then stopped struggling and took a look at himself, "Wait, what am I doing? I don't want to fight you." And apparently those were the magic words because Hogohei let him go once he admitted as much, "We're supposed to be friends."

"Stop trying to get me to let my guard down." Janine grunted as her Pokémon were doing a great job of keeping her down and away from fighting Naruto, "You keep me around so that you can make sure I don't turn on you. We both know what this was supposed to be from the start. It was a truce."

After rubbing his ankle, Naruto got up from his position of laying down on the ground and walked over to where Janine was still being grounded by her Zubat and Pineco, "I haven't thought like that in weeks. And you haven't given me a reason to." Still, there was definitely a wall between the two of them really trusting each other.

Naruto was past the point where he was suspicious of her actions, but she just didn't tell him enough for him to feel comfortable with her. She was always leaving things out of her explanations, like in Vermillion City before they fought Lt. Surge and even that very day in Lavender Town outside of Pokémon Tower.

Maybe the circumstances pitting each other on the particular sides of the fight they had waged against one another had left a more mature seed of doubt than either of them had thought. Hard feelings left over from the first time perhaps? She was still glaring up at him.

But he didn't want to fight anymore, and from the way their Pokémon had been acting since they knocked each other out they didn't want the two to fight either.

Sitting down on the ground right in front of Janine, Naruto let her continue to glare at him as he took her Zubat off of her head and did the same with her Pineco to free her up to move, "Janine… we're friends. Look at all of the stuff we've done; fighting Team Rocket, getting and trying to sell the Moon Stones, sneaking onto cruise ships, taking missions, beating Gym Leaders… I even saved your ass one time. And you're always helping me out."

"Because if I didn't you'd be dead from stupidity by now." Janine blurted out before covering her mouth. If she had been helping him for his own good it was because she gave a damn one way or another about his well-being. With a grumble she sat up as well and took her Zubat back off of Naruto's shoulder and her Pineco back out of Naruto's lap, "Fine… what's your point?"

"None of this had to happen if you'd just tell me something before we actually get into trouble." Naruto said with a deadpan look on his face. That was his point, "You knew what was going on in Vermillion City and you didn't tell me anything until right before we got our asses kicked by Lt. Surge. You knew what was happening in Lavender Town, but you didn't tell me what was important about going inside Pokémon Tower so I didn't want to go inside because of the you-know-whats. I can't read your mind."

Lightly touching at the bruise on the middle of her forehead, Janine flinched for two reasons; because Naruto was more or less on the money, and because that stupid bruise was pretty nasty, "No you can't. Sorry, it's just-." She sighed and shook her head, "I feel like it's my responsibility to stop my dad. He won't listen to me, so I have to make sure that I beat him before he hurts more people or Pokémon. He just doesn't care."

"You will." Naruto said as he stood up from his seated place in the grass, "Because I'm gonna help you. It's the least I can do for my guide, right?" He gave her a big toothy grin despite how things had transpired a few hours ago.

Janine raised an eyebrow at Naruto's candor in regards to lending assistance. He wasn't even asking her for a favor in return or any kind of payment at all. Well if something looked too good to be true… "Why?" …It probably was.

Naruto extended a hand down to the girl to help her stand back up. From where he was standing his body was able to block the sun glare from filling her vision, "Because that's what a friend does for a friend. And I told you already that we're friends, dattebayo. I'll help you with anything you need."

Janine just stared up at Naruto's shaded face and shook her head once again before taking his hand and letting him pull her up with a bit of a grunt of effort. She felt bad that she had just used Naruto to vent on now that she had mostly cooled off in unconsciousness.

And he wasn't showing any hard feelings for it when he could have taken a clean shot at her while her Pokémon had her pinned on the ground. Wasn't he feeling vengeful? Didn't he want to get her back for starting the fight? A kid as vigorous and as hotheaded as Naruto… she figured he would have been all over that kind of payback.

"So all you want me to do is just talk to you and let you in on some more of my secrets? It's that easy?" It was meant to be a bit sarcastic, but Naruto just nodded, not getting the sarcasm. He was really serious, "…And you get into routine fistfights with all of your friends?" There was a hint of humor in her voice that he hadn't heard since earlier that day for just a moment at the bridge.

"Not all of them, but it happens more than you think it would."

"Gah, I swear you're so weird. You don't even know when someone is messing with you."

She liked that though. Who wanted to be just like everyone else anyway? What was the fun in that?

As they returned their Pokémon to their Poke Balls, Janine was then confused when Naruto started heading back towards Lavender Town. That was the way they had just come from, and they hadn't even gone that far from there, "Where are you going?" She pointed in the exact opposite direction where the sky was already dark from the sun going down, "Celadon City's detour is that way."

"We left town late in the day anyway and the sun's going to be completely down in ten minutes." Naruto remarked, getting Janine to turn red-faced at overlooking that little point, "…We could camp out though?" He suggested almost desperately.

Janine raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest at the illogical behavior, "Why would we camp out when we could just go back to Lav-?" She then stopped talking and took on a sly look, "Are you still scared of Lavender Town Naruto?"

"I'm not scared of it!" He replied heatedly as he continued to stomp down the path, "I just don't like the feel of the place, that's all."

There was no shame in that. It was perfectly reasonable. Who wanted to hang around in a town notable for being full of ghosts? And he didn't even have any charms to ward away evil spirits or anything. He was just being smart. Jiraiya would have done the same thing.

Kami, why did that thought send a shiver down his spine?

"You know there are more ghosts in the open fields around Lavender Town at night than you'd find in the actual town itself… they're way meaner than your Misdreavus too." Janine commented idly, still fitfully holding the bruise on her head from slamming heads with Naruto, "They'll suck all of the life force out of you or eat your dreams until they scare you to death."

Well when pressed with that thought…

A quick shot out of Naruto's hand quickly grabbed Janine around her wrist and started dragging her back to the creepy town at the foot of the mountains. At least there if he fell under the vaunted curse of the vengeful spirits someone could hear him scream.

"Whoa! What was that, 'ttebayo?"

"That was just a wild Rattata…"

"Whew… good."

"Oh… no I was wrong. That's actually a Haunter. Run. Seriously."

XxX

(Later that Night – Route 10)

The mountainside trail near a rapid-moving river was bustling with men and supplies moving toward a designated location with a mission in mind. All of these things of course adorned in black with the red 'R' of Team Rocket emblazoned upon them.

Even in the daytime no one really went in that direction other than once a blue moon. It was the way towards the dilapidated Northern Kanto Power Plant populated with dangerous electric-type Pokémon.

But those men weren't going there to catch Pokémon in bulk for their organization's purposes. They were there for one Pokémon in particular, and they would need every last bit of manpower they could get if they wished to obtain victory on this day.

Overseeing the entire operation was the recently recovered Lt. Surge, sitting on the edge of a cliff supervising his below Team Rocket underlings transport materials intended for the pending battle to the field of conflict. The open plains surrounding the power plant weren't this military officer's choice of grounds for combat against their target, but it wasn't like he could pick the battleground. This was a hunt and he was the hunter.

"So you finally recovered from your defeat in Vermillion City?"

A gruff grunt of affirmation was the only response from Lt. Surge toward the questioning female voice as he continued to sit on the edge of the cliff and keep his attention on what was happening down below.

From thin air, directly behind Lt. Surge a young woman appeared wearing white boots, purple leggings, a pair of white gloves, and a pink turtleneck shirt with yellow cuffs underneath a white Team Rocket shirt. She had long dark purple hair and a smirk on her lips as she stood behind Lt. Surge in front of a strange Pokémon with yellow skin, fox-like ears, a long mustache on its face, a large tail coming out of its backside, a brown section of upper body that looked armored, thin arms and legs with three clawed fingers and toes on each, and a spoon in one of its hands.

The young woman continued to speak from where she stood behind Surge, "For a mission like this one would think you would have waited until you were in better condition to command it. Zapdos isn't going to go easy on you because you're hurt. It'll kill you for trying to capture it all the same."

"The wounds don't matter." Lt. Surge stated firmly, "It's my mission and it's one I'm accomplishing." Besides… he probably wasn't going to have to put himself in too much jeopardy either way. That was what all of those Team Rocket grunts were for; mostly cannon fodder, "The big yellow bird might be scary to civilians, but no one knows electric Pokémon like me. The Boss knows that I'm the only one fit to handle this."

"_It's why he didn't kill you of course for losing to a pair of kids. Now just imagine if that had gotten out past our little organization."_

A punch crumbled the edge of the cliff from an angry Lt. Surge, "Stay out of my head with your freaky powers Sabrina... that's a warning."

The girl Sabrina only laughed and floated away from him closer to her strange Pokémon, "Oh I forgot. That little episode left you with a strong distaste for people with special abilities. You don't like psychics anymore?"

Damn that woman. Of course she'd have gotten a kick out of hearing about his defeat. He had been informed that Team Rocket had suffered a bit of a setback in Lavender Town as well earlier that day, but it wasn't nearly as big of a deal as the one in Vermillion City.

He wasn't going to lose again though. He was going to kill that Naruto brat, and then he was going to kill their third elite comrade's daughter Janine whether the man liked it or not. He had something up his sleeve for them the next time.

"Feh." Lt. Surge spat out distastefully as he placed a pair of binoculars at his eyes to scout out the power plant on the barren plains in the distance. The destination of the day, "I wouldn't expect you to get it. It wasn't as if you fought either of them."

"No, but you did. And that's just as good." Sabrina stated as she walked closer to him once more, "If you'll permit me to do so of course." She wasn't turned down as she walked closer, thus she put a hand on the top of Lt. Surge's head.

Her eyes glowed blue as she dove into Surge's mind and searched for the fight in Vermillion City against the children that had defeated him, eventually finding what she had been looking for. She released the spiky blonde hair of Surge and backed away from the military man, "You find what you wanted?"

An interested smile grew on Sabrina's lips in regards to the question, "Among other things, yes." She looked over towards the power plant in the clear night sky and saw a large booming flash of lightning stem right from above it, "Good luck." She said as she returned to her odd-looking psychic Pokémon, "I believe you're going to need quite a bit of it to take on one of the three legendary bird Pokémon."

Lt. Surge didn't say anything as the girl vanished just as quickly as she arrived along with her Pokémon of choice, he just observed the silhouette in the sky that took the form of his target of the evening; Zapdos, "Tch… if anyone needs luck it's the poor little bastard that you're interested in." He muttered to himself before stowing his binoculars away and putting on a pair of tough rubber gloves, "Time to go to work…"

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 8: Lavender Town<span>

With the last mission at the Northern Kanto Power Plant complete after the end of that violent lightning storm, Minato, Genma, and Raido completed the rest of their mission and moved along to the next town, which just so happened to be a quiet, tranquil little hamlet named Lavender Town.

Of course by then they had learned of the town's reputation as a place filled with ghost Pokémon by travelers that they passed on the way. And by the time they had made it there it had been nightfall. A moonless night to boot.

Still rather skittish from his episode with the gigantic lightning bird that was manipulating the weather at the power plant, this time Raido wasn't taking any chances with his local suspicions as they walked through town to find a place to stay until morning.

"Are you sure you don't have enough charms and talismans?" Genma remarked as he rolled his usual senbon around in his mouth like a toothpick, "You spent half of your pay on them."

Standing next to him and sporting a brand new electrical burn scar across his face, Raido's entire shinobi uniform was covered in all sorts of spiritual ward items, "This Kanto place is dangerous…" He said, touching at the still sore scar on his face, "I'm not taking any more chances."

"Then you should have spent your money on Poke Balls or Repel." Minato said with a bit of a good-natured laugh at his subordinate's expense, "Who's afraid of a ghost?" He asked with uncharacteristically boisterous laughter.

"Minato-senpai… our shadows aren't attached to us anymore."

Minato stopped mid-step at Genma's comment and a simultaneous breath of mist due to a suddenly colder temperature, all three of the Konoha ninja turned around to find a trio of dark purple Pokémon with short legs, short arms, pointed stubby tails, spiky fur going down their backs, and glowing red eyes complete with sinister looking grins as they climbed out of the ground from where they had been mimicking the shadows of the Konoha contingent.

Genma bit his senbon hard enough to bend it, and Raido opened his mouth to yell, but before he could a sharp yell that didn't originate from him came from his side. Before he could even wonder what human being on Earth made such a sound, he was grabbed by Minato along with Genma and transported away in a flash of yellow.

…It couldn't have been Minato that had screamed could it have been?

No way. Minato didn't scream. He could face down a jinchuuriki with full control of its biju and the next man in line to take up the Raikage seat at the same exact time all on his own. There was no way he'd be afraid of a few ghosts.

That would have been just embarrassing.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe): Male   
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire).

Hogohei (Cloyster): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting).

Sazakumoru (Cubone): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock).

Shujinken (Misdreavus): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Growl (Normal), Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug), Flash (Normal).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Zubat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying), Wing Attack (Flying).

Venonat: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal).

Pineco: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Protect (Normal), Selfdestruct (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Take Down (Normal), Gyro Ball (Steel), Bide (Normal).

* * *

><p><strong>So Jiraiya's in Kanto and he's now a man on a mission of his own. But of course he'll be back around as you would expect. Everybody needs their periodic dose of the grandest toad sage in the land to stay well balanced and we will definitely be getting it in spades.<strong>

**What else? Naruto's scared of ghosts, something that Minato apparently passed down to him (go figure), yet still managed to catch one. And after a little tiff stemming from feminine stress he's got a definite support/friend in the fellow ninja of a different discipline Janine whether they both know it/like it or not. Alright, I think that covers the bases.**

**Of course I hope you enjoyed, and I bid you all adieu. I need to get back to doing real world things for the sake of my damned college credits and my bankroll. Memorial Day weekend does not mean I get to stop and bask in the awesome of the American soldier even though I live with a vet.**

**Nope. No cooking out for me when there's work to be done.**

**Until the next time, Kenchi out.**


	10. Natural Selection

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. Man if Pokémon were real this world would be so much more messed up than it already is man… can you just imagine? You think schools are dangerous now with kids bringing weapons once every blue moon? What do you think would happen if a kid's pet could burn the school down in thirty seconds or cause an earthquake at will?

And that's just one example.

No way. Fuck that.

**Chapter 10: Natural Selection**

* * *

><p>"Okay, so tell me you've got that. Review time. What's particular about Celadon City's Gym Leader?" Janine asked Naruto as they walked down the sidewalk of a very large and beautiful city. Instead of the buildings just being solid grey, they seemed to be in multitude of colors in the downtown area. It was fairly entrancing for someone that knew nothing of cities being this large.<p>

Naruto counted amongst the people that knew nothing of cities being this large. So many big skyscrapers, and so many people packed together. For a city that was at the edge of a forest it was absolutely massive. The biggest commerce-generating town in Kanto.

"Why does it matter to you so much that I know all of this?" Naruto asked, wondrously taking in the sights while eating a huge bag of chips that he had purchased from a vending machine nearby earlier, "You've been shoving this crap into my head since we saw the sign of the city. Why don't you take the Gym Leader Challenge if you know all of this stuff?"

Janine wanted some of Naruto's chips too, but she'd lose a finger trying to go for any and she knew it. And he called her greedy, the little glutton. Ignoring that, she gave her reasoning though, "There are a few reasons I can't take on the Gym Leader Challenge. It's a combination of things."

Such as the point of her parentage making it unfair to do so, and the fact that due to aforementioned parentage she wasn't on good terms with most of the leaders; the past incident with Misty a clear example of such. She didn't have anything against the one in this town though, so that was something to look forward to.

"And since I can't do it, and you said you wanted to do it I'm making sure I don't have to watch you lose to one by making sure you're ready. That's my responsibility. I'm sure your sensei would thank me for it." Janine asserted, getting a roll of the eyes from Naruto. Jiraiya didn't know jack about Gym Leaders. How that old pervert figured he'd be fine in Kanto without Naruto at his side the blonde didn't know, "Besides, this is the first Pokémon Gym you're actually challenging where you have a type advantage!"

Contrary to what one would think after watching him fight, Naruto understood type advantages, because he had been made to after his episode in Lavender Town with the ghost Pokémon, but it hadn't been like type had mattered too much before. Apparently in Cerulean City he had been at a horrible disadvantage, and in Vermillion City while Sazakumoru had the advantage over Surge the little Cubone hadn't had enough training for it to matter.

Apparently he did this time. And Janine was rather excited about that. With good reason as well, because he had been winning again and again against Gym Leaders by nothing more than the skin of his teeth, even with direct help from her one time. Maybe this time it could actually be decisive?

"It's going to be easy." Janine insisted, rubbing her hands together mischievously as she continued to walk along the sidewalk, plotting the battle plan for taking on The Celadon City Gym, "All you have to do is bust out Ranbouen the second the battle starts and it'll be-." She noticed that when she reached to the side to try and be sneaky and grab some chips that not only did she miss the bag, she missed Naruto altogether.

…Because he wasn't there anymore. Apparently she'd gotten too caught up in the fiery splendor that was going to be Ranbouen's crushing victory over the Celadon Gym Leader for Naruto's tastes and had decided to try his luck exploring on his own for a while.

There was no way he left without her sensing him go. But more importantly he had just ditched her! He said he'd never do that!

Where did he go anyway? He didn't know anything about the city.

"Damn you Naruto!" Janine shouted, disturbing some of the people walking around her before she stalked off, trying to think of places that would attract Naruto's attention.

XxX

(With Naruto)

Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap.

Bleh, Naruto had taken more than enough of hearing that. Nothing but 'Celadon Gym this' and 'Celadon Gym that' ever since the city had come into sight. He hadn't had to listen to that much lecturing since he had left the Ninja Academy, and he still wasn't a fan of any of it.

Janine never noticed him leave. From his experience with Iruka, people that gave long-winded explanations got caught up in the sound of their own voices and made it literal child's play to sneak away from them.

And it wasn't like he didn't notice her trying to pilfer his damn chips. She should have gotten her own bag when they stopped.

He had plenty of places to hide from her too while he got to do what he wanted; training in the tranquil woodland areas that surrounded the outskirts of Celadon City. For a place that was so industrialized it had a great natural balance. Well kept forest roads that moved seamlessly through the trees without disturbing a thing. His hat was off to the city planners… if he wore one of course.

And that meant that he could use the controlled wilderness to work.

With the use of a Kage Bunshin per Pokémon, Naruto was spreading his focus out today. Due to the fact that they were just more fragile versions of himself, Naruto had two clones wage a mock one-on-one battle between his Cubone Sazakumoru and his Hitmonlee Fukigenko to get the little one some more much needed experience fighting.

"Rolling Kick!"

"Bone Club!"

Both Fukigenoko and Sazakumoru met in the middle and clashed with a wide swinging spin kick and a slam of a bone that stalemated, giving no noticeable advantage to one or the other at first. Eventually the reverberation of the power shots landing and hurting her hands got to Sazakumoru and she dropped her bone to the ground before she started to cry.

Fukigenko and the clone that had been in command of him both watched this uncomfortably as the clone rubbed the back of its neck sheepishly, "Uh… does that mean we win?" He asked, getting Fukigenko to palm his face and shake his head.

"Aww…" The clone that had been directing the little Cubone walked over and picked her up while she kept crying. It wanted to tell her that she needed to toughen up, but it just didn't have the heart to, "It's okay Saza-chan." If anyone knew what it was like to come up short, it was Naruto, and he wasn't really big on letting others beat themselves up over it. That meant that his clones weren't either, "Fuki's not really the best sparring partner for going easy."

The eyes of Fukigenko's turned in his best mouthless expression of a scowl, and he stomped his foot harshly on the ground several times for being called out on not having sparring etiquette. It was true and he knew it, but that wasn't his fault. A fight was supposed to be a fight. He was a _fighting_ Pokémon. Next time Naruto should pick a better partner.

Fukigenko's Naruto-clone jabbed him on the shoulder subtly to get his attention and made sure that Sazakumoru and her Naruto-clone weren't looking their way before giving the Hitmonlee a silent thumbs-up before dispelling.

A little ways off another clone of Naruto was with Ranbouen, and he wasn't having much fun even though the fire dog was as energetic as ever at getting to be out and about.

"Keep that nose of yours primed Ranbouen…" Naruto warned, his eyes darting all about as he and his first Pokémon walked carefully through the trees, "We already know that she can be anywhere…" Naruto-clone had suggested a game to help Ranbouen's ability to track instead of just working on his fighting skills. He had enough work on that, "Just be cool."

Ranbouen was cool. He was cool as he sat and watched his master's chakra doppelganger look around as if he were paranoid. But his eyes were locked on the tree directly behind Naruto-clone as he watched the newly added Misdreavus of the party emerge from it and position herself right behind the clone's ear where she then shrieked at it.

Naruto-clone jumped ten feet in the air, and landed to turn and glare at his little banshee of a Pokémon, She was then thoroughly rewarded with red energy orbs of fear from Naruto that flew into her mouth.

"Shujinken (Tricky Mistress)… seriously. Stop doing that." Having received her nourishment from scaring the crap out of Naruto's clone, all Shujinken did was snicker at the clone and float around it playfully as it walked over to Ranbouen who hadn't been surprised at all, "…When you notice the thing that we're looking for you have to let me know that you did. So that stuff like that doesn't happen."

Tilting his head as he listened, Ranbouen then gave an affirmative nod to let Naruto-clone know that he had indeed understood. He got a pat on the head that got him to start happily panting and he began walking with the clone as Shujinken rested on the Growlithe's head. It was probably time to go find the original.

Meanwhile with the original Naruto, he was busy inspecting his newly evolved Cloyster now that he had the time to do so.

For the longest time Naruto just stared at the open shell of Hogohei and at the smirking dark face within before he finally got his stones up and yelled as he let loose a haymaker. Hogohei merely closed his shell and let Naruto's fist bounce off of it basically harmlessly… for him. Naruto damn near broke his hand and he didn't even budge the bulky water Pokémon.

Shaking out his busted fist, Naruto was then greeted with the smug look on the open-shelled face of Hogohei, "That didn't hurt at all did it?" Hogohei's head inside of his two shells shook for a no, "Didn't think so." He cracked his fist and took a step back for a charge, "Alright, let's see how tough you really are now. Let's fight." Hogohei's shell immediately closed and he launched himself at Naruto for a Tackle, leading with his horn. Naruto had to leap aside or get smashed by 300 pounds of Cloyster shell, "Whoa! Is that how we're playing this?"

That was how they were playing that, because Hogohei then launched the sharp horn that stuck outside of its closed shell in a Spike Cannon attack. Once again, Naruto dodged it and watched it impale itself through the trunk of a tree.

A shocked Naruto turned his head from the sight of what could have been him back to Hogohei who had his shell open and had the good nature to look sheepish as a new horn immediately replaced itself just over his hidden head. Naruto shrugged it off though. Hogohei barely knew his own body. Pokémon puberty was potentially violent. Who knew?

"…We can work with that." Naruto said, dismissing the fact that he had almost died a grisly death, "Come on. Keep going. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Naruto made several clones that jumped all over Hogohei's shell trying to futilely beat their way through it once it shut once more, "Damn I need a better idea. I'm never getting through that thing."

"Heave-ho Boss!"

Naruto quickly realized what his clones were doing and rushed over to help them pick Hogohei up. The madly grinning Naruto brigade proceeded to hurl Hogohei through the air and sent him crashing into a tree that was felled by his weight and the force of his impact.

Hogohei's shell uprighted itself and opened up to reveal a rather stunned Pokémon. Apparently Naruto could find more creative ways to rattle up what was inside of his defenses instead of trying to force his way through them. Good luck with doing that.

"Good!" Naruto said as he walked over to Hogohei and his clones dispelled, "I wonder how well you could take an explosion." He thought aloud as he pulled out an explosive tag and stroked his chin, "You want to try that next?" He asked before Hogohei leaned in front of Naruto and blocked a blunted arrow that released a minor amount of powder from the head upon contact.

"Hm, your Cloyster seems rather loyal to you, even with abuse like that. You even considered placing it within an explosion."

Naruto peeked around Hogohei's body and spotted the person that had fired the arrow at him from the nearby road.

It was hard at first to find the person that did it, but it became rather obvious after a second glance. There was a small caravan of people carrying some kind of carriage that he figured royalty would be carried in so that they wouldn't have to walk with normal people, and with the curtain to it drawn open Naruto saw a girl slightly older than him sitting inside in seiza holding a bow.

She had neck-length dark hair with a red hairband and wore an ornate yellow kimono with orange autumn patterns adorning the bottom and white tabi socks. She was also glaring at him for what she believed was going to be abuse of his Pokémon.

"I wasn't abusing Hogohei." Naruto replied confusedly, picking up the arrow from the ground. His fingers stroked the head of it and his hand went numb. Weird, "It was training. He just evolved and I wanted to see what he could do before I'm supposed to fight the Gym Leader here." He scratched his head with his free hand and looked around, "My other Pokémon are around here somewhere."

A bit of a smile came to the lips of the girl being carried by the people, "I don't think the Celadon City Gym Leader would fight a person that can't find their Pokémon… and your training involves causing explosions around your Pokémon? Tell me how that wouldn't be torturous. I watched your Cloyster destroy that tree."

The arrow broke in Naruto's hand due to the tightening of his grip. He didn't have anything to say to that person. First of all he would never do anything that he didn't think his Pokémon couldn't handle. Second of all it wasn't any of her damn business.

"Maybe you want to see what it's really like when I get tough?" Naruto said, with Hogohei actually willing and able to back up what Naruto had to say as he didn't particularly like Naruto's ability to raise Pokémon being questioned. It was insulting to Hogohei too, to say that he couldn't take a bit of a beating. He could totally survive one of Naruto's explosive tags going off.

The girl merely put her bow down and looked away from Naruto towards the front of her caravan as they began to move again, "No, I don't humor aggressive people that think that pure force is all it takes to make a successful trainer." She then curtly closed the curtain to her carriage, abruptly ending the conversation on her terms.

Naruto bit his tongue, if only because he wasn't going to outright attack someone that wasn't willing to fight him as well for no reason. And besides, what did he care what some prim little noble-looking chick thought about him? She didn't know anything at all. Nothing about him and definitely nothing about what his team was capable of withstanding.

"Sure." Naruto said rudely, giving Hogohei a few reassuring pats on the shell as the group moved away, "Whatever you say _princess_. I'm so sure someone that won't walk through the forest on their own feet can tell me all about personality. I don't need to say anything else to tell you what I think that says about you." He recalled Hogohei to his Poke Ball and threw his hands behind his neck before beginning to walk away, "I wouldn't want to battle you and make you break a nail anyway."

He didn't even turn back around, but he heard the curtain to the carriage draw open and the footsteps of the caravan cease. Naruto almost started chuckling. His well-harnessed ability to pester others into action would always get him by somehow.

The hard eyes of the girl in the carriage were fixed on the red spiral mark on the back of Naruto's clothing as he ambled away seemingly without a care, "If you really are looking for a battle, follow this road until you reach the end of it." She said tersely, "I don't wish to harm your Pokémon just because of your ignorance, but some lessons must be hard taught I'm afraid."

"Yeah, yeah." Naruto said without turning around to face her again as he walked further into the woods, "Maybe I'll drop by after lunch. My Pokémon are probably hungry by now… what with my _abusive training_ and all. He could feel the killing intent being thrown his way and he absolutely loved it, "Later princess."

With a huff, the girl swiftly closed he curtains again and the caravan went off to carry her to her destination at the end of the road while Naruto went to collect the other Pokémon that he had left to train with his clones. It was chow time.

XxX

(A Little While Later Celadon City Gym)

In the back of the facility there was a very lush and beautiful garden meant for relaxation and serenity… and for target practice as well apparently because it doubled as an archery field. Each targeted bullseye had an arrow right in the center. Even the ones swinging freely from branches weren't missed at all.

A quite angry noble girl was trying to compose herself, but could only think of shooting that jerk kid from the woods nearby. An attitude like that didn't become her at all. She was supposed to be calmer than that. A Gym Leader had to be calmer than that.

"Still being as perfect as ever aren't you Erika?"

A peaceful smile came to the girl's face before she lowered her bow and arrow and turned to greet her guest, "Janine." She turned around and found the female ninja in question looking at her amusedly with a smirk on her face and her arms crossed, "It's been a long time. Eight months. You have a job here you've taken?" She conversed in a friendly manner.

"No, I'm done with that for now… mostly." Janine walked over to her and jumped over the fence that cut off the archery section from the rest of the garden to get closer to the girl, "Unless there's something you want to hire me for."

"You don't do assassinations do you?" Erika replied, half-jokingly. She'd be lying if she said that there wasn't some appeal to the thought.

"Nope. I'm a thief." Janine gave the girl a quick hug that was returned before looking around the garden, "Ahh, youth management of a Pokémon Gym… it gives me some hope for my own future." She quipped, "I just thought I'd pop in and see a friend while I'm around looking for something I lost. I thought I might find it here if I waited around long enough."

Erika frowned and led her off of the archery grounds to have a seat on a bench within the garden, "If it's your father I'm afraid that the next time he shows his face in this Gym it will be the first time since all of the… unpleasantness began coming to light." She sighed and smoothed out the dress of her kimono, as she looked down at the ground, "I am very glad that you were able to extricate yourself from all of that before it was too late. I would hate to have to consider you anything less than a friend."

"You and me both…" Janine said quietly and the two simply sat there, not saying anything to one another for quite some time. It was far from uncomfortable though, "…I'm going to stop him you know. I'll get him, and I'll make him go home. Fuchsia Gym needs its leader back, even if I have to force him to do it."

"Koga is still the Fuschsia Gym Leader only because the combined organization of Kanto Gym Leaders that could take the position away from him has been split in half." Erika stated, putting a hand on Janine's shoulder, "As of now the leaders of Fuchsia, Vermillion, and Saffron have gone dark and are considered to be conspirators in Team Rocket's conspiracy. Perhaps you can convince your city to take control of the Gym from him."

While many Gyms had been founded by the people that ran them years and years ago, they became the focal points of wherever they had been set up. Towns with Gyms began to bustle and boom much more than others that didn't with clear results.

Gym Leaders were influential and were more or less the city bigwigs. They were well-paid from victory in many high-stakes battles, and in some cases like Erika they were treated as nobility for their prowess. Celadon City saw her as something of a princess, or the closest thing to one that existed on that continent.

The non-trainer populace and pretty much even lesser trainers fell into step and deferred to the Gym Leaders… with results that often weren't so great. Being a Gym Leader pretty much gave you a license to do whatever you wanted as Pokémon battles could get wild, destructive, and costly.

That clearly led to an abuse of power here with Janine's father and Lt. Surge, as well as Saffron City's Gym Leader if that person was indeed called as well. That was a danger, power was a corruptive thing. And the power that being a Gym Leader granted could easily be used to try and achieve one's dreams, no matter how nefarious those dreams could be. There was no test of one's morals to be a Gym Leader.

Janine let out a bitter laugh and shook her head, "Who'd replace him? No one else is close. They know it, that's why I have no support at home to have it happen." A Gym Leader was effectively a mayor in the premises of their towns. They were the ones that the people looked to for leadership and to handle what was important. That was why it was so mind-blowing that Erika was one, "I'd make a crappy Gym Leader anyway. You're only fifteen and they gave it to you back when you were my age. You're making me look bad you know."

Erika gave Janine a few pats on the lap to get her to cast out all of the pessimism, "I'm certain you're being too hard on yourself. Your confidence in yourself seems to come and go. You always believe so strongly in yourself and your abilities until something along the topic of Fushcia Gym comes up." Then her self-assurance just flittered away.

The blame would have to go to Janine's upbringing if Erika had to label something to blame. Koga was an oppressively harsh taskmaster. This much was evident for years, even when the two were younger, when Janine was eight and Erika was eleven.

"Heh… well my belief is going up today, because a friend of mine is going to be coming here to battle you." Janine tried to change the subject before realizing something. A pout came over her face when she remembered the unknown whereabouts of said friend, "…If I can find him. His name is Naruto."

Frowning at her friend, Erika thought of something else related to battling that Janine had reminded her of, "I am afraid your friend will have to wait for me to deal with a more pressing challenge first. I intend to teach a disrespectful trainer a much needed lesson sometime today."

Ooh. Someone had actually pissed Erika off enough that she was willing to fight just like that. That never happened. As a matter of fact, normally if one were to look for her at that time of the day they would find he in the center of the Gym sleeping while sitting up. That was how easy-going she usually was.

Of course, if she watched Erika battle someone else first she might wind up seeing something that she could later use to help Naruto during his battle… not that he would need it if he was smart enough to heed the advice she'd been shoving into his head all morning long.

A woman in a maid outfit arrived on the scene and bowed to Erika, "A young man has issued a challenge to the Gym my lady. He's waiting on the field right now. I believe he's the boy you informed us to keep an eye out for."

A gleam appeared in Erika's eye as she stood up and dismissed the maid. A battle was forthcoming, "Can I watch?" Janine asked, pointing towards the Gym, "I want to see you fight mad for once. You never do that."

"I'm not angry. I'm just filled with what I believe is righteous intent." Erika said in reasoning correction before beckoning Janine to follow with a smile, "And of course you can watch. Now then; should I paralyze him, poison him, or put him to sleep?"

"I'm always partial to a good poisoning, you know that."

XxX

A yawn escaped Naruto as he sat on the floor of the wide open Gym and looked around. Much like Brock's Gym and Misty's Gym the place was acclimated to suit a certain type of Pokémon with all of the different kinds of trees, bushes, and grass as well as the skylight that brought in sunlight onto the entire Gym floor. It was a lot like the city he was in with regards to how the environment balanced out within civilization. Once again, impressive.

He was ignoring the lot of glares that came from the other underling trainers that populated the Gym. Most of them were the same people from the entourage that the girl in the forest had carrying her to this location and they seemed to be trying to make him spontaneously combust with their eyes.

Uzumaki Naruto wasn't a brain surgeon by any stretch of the imagination, but by now he was well aware of the fact that he had goaded the actual Gym Leader of this city into a fight outside of the confines of the actual Gym before he knew who she was.

It was sort of redundant when he sat down and started thinking about it since he was going to challenge the Gym Leader anyway. In his defense he didn't know that the girl was the Gym Leader, and even with that aside in this case all roads led to Konoha so to speak, so it was harmless as far as he was concerned.

"It's a very calming atmosphere isn't it?" Hearing the calm female voice of the girl that had shot the blunted arrow at him in the woods, Naruto hopped up to his feet in alarm only to look across the intended battlefield at his intended opponent, sitting properly in the grass without a care, "I take pride in the effect that Celadon Gym can have on hostile people. It is rather hard to stay angry in this place."

"I do like your Gym." Naruto admitted openly, bouncing on his toes and trying to get fired back up to fight again, "I don't like you though. So let's do this already, dattebayo."

"Why the rush to battle?" The same way Naruto got pleasure from antagonizing her subtly in the woods, Erika got a bit of a kick out of getting Naruto to gnash his teeth impatiently. It definitely put a smile on her face, "You're already here and neither you or I are going anywhere. Why not get to know each other a bit? My name is Erika, and as you've probably long since guessed I am the Celadon City Gym Leader. It is rather brave of you to accept my challenge even with that knowledge."

"I'm not afraid of a fight and I'm not an abusive trainer, that's all you need to know." Naruto decided to state flat-out, "I love my Pokémon. They've saved my ass so many times since I came to Kanto, I'd never hurt them. I just want them to be strong because we get into a lot of danger. My friend is after someone that's supposed to be dangerous and I promised her I would help her no matter what."

Minor vulgarity in his language aside, Erika didn't see any deceit in Naruto's eyes or in his posture, defensive as it was.

Wow… the Gym really did have a calming effect.

"Boo… come on Naruto. Say something stupid and make Erika mad again like she was outside. You didn't even make her yell at you."

Naruto turned towards one of the trees in the Gym and found his travelling companion sitting up in a branch and waving at him with her legs crossed, "Janine?" She gave him a toothy grin in response, "What the hell?"

"You ditched me you jackass!" Janine yelled, throwing an acorn at him, "I knew you'd come here eventually, and then I should have known it was you that upset Erika too… but I told her I've got my money on you so you'd better win this battle."

So this was the Naruto that Janine had told Erika about outside. Interesting. Why was she with him? And was she the friend that Naruto said he was going to help? If that was indeed the case she could definitely identify a dangerous person that Janine had openly expressed interest in pursuing.

Well now she had a new reason to battle Naruto. If he thought he could help Janine overcome her father and all of the resources that Team Rocket had at their disposal she would definitely be testing that mettle herself. As a friend of the kunoichi she had to make sure of such. It was only right.

As the observational young Gym Leader was trying to ponder just how Naruto figured into being friends with someone such as Janine, Naruto's attention had momentarily been captured by Janine's presence, "I ditched you because you were going off like a broken record! You had been talking about the same thing over and over since breakfast! I know, I got it! And if anything this Erika person started the whole thing between us. She shot an arrow at me and accused me of abusing my Pokémon."

A dry look was pasted on Janine's face as she looked from Naruto to Erika who seemed to be in deep thought, too deep to listen to the conversation going on between the two of them, "Okay, I can see that happening. Erika doesn't look it, but she's kind of spacy. Just ignore it… don't let it get to you." That girl seriously held a grudge like a wet match held a flame, "Erika wake up!" She yelled when she saw her friend about to nod off to sleep.

Erika snapped out of her self-induced daze and returned to attention, "Oh my… I'm sorry for that." She said, rather embarrassed at almost falling asleep in front of a new person.

'She seriously needs to stop working the powders into her arrows. The Sleep Powders are seriously doing a number on her…' Janine thought to herself with a facepalm before returning her attention to Naruto, "Remember how to beat her okay?"

A belligerent Naruto stuck his tongue out at Janine and held up a Poke Ball, "I know, I know. You only said it like three hundred times." Even he wasn't that vacant-minded.

Seeing Naruto pull out a Poke Ball, Erika reached for her own and allowed it to expand in her hand, "Well I guess the quickest way to determine what kind of person you are is to battle you. May I have someone referee the bout for us? Not you Janine." She added quickly before Janine could jump down and take the reins of judging the bout.

While Janine pouted from her spot in the tree at having he services turned down, one of the attendants of the Gym stood between Naruto and Erika on the sidelines of the open field, "This battle will be a series of one-on-one battles with each trainer only able to use three Pokémon each to a finish. Absolutely no substitutions can be made on either side for the duration of the battle."

The temporary referee looked toward Naruto to see if the Gym's rules were up to par for him and his intended challenge to the facility. She of course got a nod from Naruto who didn't particularly care what terms he had to fight under, and she knew that the rules were just fine with Erika because they were the standing rules that _she_ set.

"Very well. Challenger Naruto vs. Gym Leader of Celadon City, Erika. Begin!"

Erika was the first to throw her Poke Ball and begin the festivities, "Your first opponent will be Weepinbell!" From the Poke Ball emerged a creature with a yellow bell-shaped body that had wide, gaping pink lips at the bottom and a root hook at the top of its body. It had two leaf-looking appendages on its sides, "Choose your Pokémon and we can start."

"Ranbouen go!"

Upon the sighting of Naruto's Pokémon of choice, Erika thoroughly frowned. The energetic Growlithe looked around, panting excitedly. Erika could not say that she shared that sentiment with the puppy. Up in the tree she looked at a smugly smiling Janine, "I suppose this is why you were so confident in your friend to win?"

"It was one reason, yes." Janine admitted shamelessly, "You could just give him the badge and we could all go get dinner somewhere."

Erika's frown turned into a bit of a challenging smile that kept its noble appearance, "That wouldn't make me a very good Gym Leader would it? You act as if I haven't dealt with fire-types in the past. Weepinbell greet our new friends with Razor Leaf."

The Weepinbell shrugged its leaf arms and started throwing multiple smaller, sharp leaves across the field, making a wall of projectiles that flew at Ranbouen with intent to cut and scar.

That was a pretty well spread out attack. A conventional attempt to dodge would have failed miserably… if that indeed had been what Naruto had planned on. It wasn't. He decided that the simplest way to his target was an obvious straight line, and Ranbouen was his heavy hitter, "Flame Wheel!"

Ranbouen sprayed flames from his mouth as he charged down the Razor Leaf barrage and the Weepinbell before the fire covered his body and he broke into a fast roll. He incinerated the leaves without them cutting into him and rolled straight ahead, burning a trail into the ground until he slammed right into the hapless grass-type.

A cringe came from Erika as she watched the specs of flame fly through the air as her Weepinbell was brutally knocked away by Naruto's counterattack, "I figured you would play it safe and try to stop my leaves with a distance attack or simply try to evade it. I had no idea you would utilize Flame Wheel, or that your Pokémon even knew it."

Things had not started well for Erika with Naruto pushing straight through her opening attack and inflicting heavy damage right off the bat. But she wasn't giving up. She had moves for just such a scenario. All she had to do was let things transpire until it was time to act.

Naruto saw the Weepinbell get back up and sicced Ranbouen on him without haste, taking advantage of the obvious type superiority, "Flamethrower!"

"Weepinbell use Knock Off!"

Erika had that counter prepared from the moment Naruto had taken the upper hand. The second Ranbouen's mouth opened for him to begin inhaling air to exhale for the Flamethrower, Weepinbell's top root extended quickly and nailed him under the chin, snapping his mouth shut and canceling the attack.

The hit dazed Ranbouen and he snorted fire involuntarily from his nose as opposed to his mouth and growled at Weepinbell before moving towards him to attack again at Naruto's behest, "Ember!" A faster attack instead of a stronger one to ensure a greater chance of it landing.

"Razor Leaf!"

The fire pellets and the massive amounts of bladed leaves created a mid-air inferno that Ranbouen used as cover to get closer and ensure that his next issued attack would have absolutely no chance at missing or being evaded.

A sly smile came to Erika's lips, "Wrap." The great aim of her Weepinbell's top root was paramount as it shot out again and wrapped around Ranbouen's neck as it began to tighten and strangle him, "If he can't breathe he can't create fire."

It was all a matter of neutralizing her enemy's ability to use fire to their advantage. Naruto had an easy Pokémon to handle in that regard. Now if he had a Magmar she probably would have had Weepinbell surrender because there would have been no chance of victory.

Getting his Growlithe choked to death was not an option for Naruto. But surrender was still far from his mind. Ranbouen was tough, and he could work his way out of that, "Bite!" And Ranbouen didn't let Naruto down. He was smart enough to walk forward to provide enough slack in the root around his neck to the point where he could wriggle it around his mouth where he snapped down harshly on the appendage.

Erika's Weepinbell pulled his root back and cried out in pain at the uncalculated counter that had injured its root and a moment later found an angry Growlithe in his face, looking none too pleased at getting choked so viciously.

Naruto was none too pleased by it either, and let that be known in only so many words, "Flamethrower!"

Ranbouen inhaled deeply and this time wasn't stopped before he let loose a harsh stream of fire from his mouth and fully engulfed Weepinbell in the burst. After a moment the stream subsided and Ranbouen hopped away, still growling on guard at his downed opponent.

Weepinbell was in no fit condition to fight, covered in burns, even with a small flame still burning away on one of his leaf appendages. Erika quickly recalled her beaten Pokémon and reached for another Poke Ball. She hadn't expected her Weepinbell to win, but she had anticipated that it would have been able to weaken Ranbouen more.

She had wished to make Naruto's first victory over her choice of Pokémon a pyrrhic victory; that Ranbouen would have been so beaten up in round one that he would have been an absolute nonfactor for the rest of the battle, "It seems I chose the wrong Pokémon for that." She didn't know that he would have used a Growlithe first when she picked her Weepinbell though, "Let me try this again. Are you going to switch him out?"

"Hell no." Naruto said, getting a bark of agreement from Ranbouen, "You're not going to land any of those attacks like that again. He's not even hurt either." In a display of his health, Ranbouen shot a burst of fire into the air in a showy display to not underestimate him, "Bring it on!"

It was time to use her most rugged battler out of her current party, "Deal with Tangela next." Erika challenged him as she released her next Pokémon; a Pokémon Ranbouen's size with a body comprised of countless blue tangled up vines keeping its real body entirely from view emerged with feet that looked like red shoes. Through the vines a look of intent was visible on the face of Erika's Tangela.

"Flash!"

A quick blinding light hit everyone looking at Tangela in the eyes, as if a professional camera's flashbulb had gone off right in their faces. Both Naruto and Janine had to turn away and blink the tears out of their eyes and Ranbouen was seeing stars and dark spots.

Still though, Naruto didn't let up a bit with his aggression after having seen what Erika could do when given a bit of an opening. Not again on his watch, "Flame Burst!" Ranbouen fired a ball of fire from his mouth at Tangela only for her to dodge it due to his affected aim. Even so, the fireball hit the ground and burst into many smaller balls that littered the field and continued to bun as a trap.

'Even with a lack of vision he was trying to corral Tangela to make her an easier target. I see. Not a bad move.' Erika thought to herself before initiating her plan. For all that fire advantage there was something that his little dog just wasn't going to dodge, "PoisonPowder!"

Tangela's vines began to shake and quiver, causing obscene amounts of shimmering dust to fly into the air all over the field. Erika moved her position to sit underneath the thick leaves of a tree so that she could avoid any effects herself.

Naruto did the same, running beneath the same tree that Janine had taken a seat on the branches of to observe, "Ranbouen can't leave the field or he's disqualified!" Naruto cried out worriedly. He couldn't recall and substitute him either or else that would be construed as surrender of the round, "How bad is this powder stuff?" Would it be worth losing his most dominant advantage of the battle?

The rest of his Pokémon with the exception of the largely untested and untrained Misdreavus he had recently captured were inadequate in fighting grass-types to say the very least.

Janine knew that to, and with a concerned look on her face as she knew something about poison attacks, she didn't mince words, "You need to get him out of that powder as fast as you can. If you're going to keep him in you'd better end this fast."

Erika's attempt to indirectly defeat Naruto's Growlithe should have been something she'd prepared him for, but even if she had, what would Naruto have planned to avoid it?

"Ranbouen, Dig!"

A visibly struggling Ranbouen quickly dug himself a hole in the field, saving himself from the rain of powder. But Erika was not concerned. Poison was poison, and it was only a matter of time at that point.

Even when Ranbouen popped up beneath her Tangela and flung her into the air with his head leading. Tangela hit the ground and popped right back up, the thick vines spacing out the damage she would have taken from the impact, "It's only a matter of time now until your Growlithe feels too faint to continue. I'll help it along if that's what you want me to do."

Naruto narrowed his eyes and issued his next command, "Flame Wheel!" Even if Ranbouen was going to lose, he was going out with a bang. Engulfing himself in flames, Ranbouen rolled swiftly towards Erika's Tangela only for it to miss. Nimble little thing.

Janine noticed from her catbird's view that Ranbouen hadn't stopped and was rolling toward the hole that he had just dug. Her eyes twinkled when she saw him fall into the hole. Erika's Tangela had moved towards the other end of the hole.

And right on cue Ranbouen's rolling, burning form sprang out and plowed into Erika's Tangela. She was completely stunned. Naruto had trained his Growlithe to execute two attacks at once, combining Dig and another attack with a fire element. She wondered if he could do that with other things, but it was irrelevant at the moment because her Tangela had been thoroughly beaten, thus Erika recalled her.

"Return Ranbouen!" But not before Naruto did the same first, both disqualifying their Pokémon from the contest, "Good job. We're still up." He said as he looked through his choices for who to use next, 'Hogohei would lose, Sazakumoru would lose, Ranbouen's eliminated already, I don't know how much damage Fukigenko could do to a grass type with his kicks… so I guess I have to use Shujinken.' Naruto grabbed his choice of Poke Ball and looked at it intently, "I'm gonna need you to be serious for a bit, okay Shuji-chan?"

Since he couldn't get any answer from the inside of a Poke Ball, Naruto released his Misdreavus who floated in the air with her normal impish smile on her face. That didn't reassure Naruto any, but he believed that Shujinken was a good girl… err, Pokémon. She just liked to play. He was quite certain that when it came time to fight she'd show him something special.

Erika was ready with her third and final Pokémon that she finally released after Naruto had sent out his own, "I know how to deal with a ghost Pokémon. Show him what I mean Gloom." From her Poke Ball emerged a creature with a small blue body with a large rust-colored flower atop its head covered with white spots. Drool dripped from its mouth and it had both of its eyes closed as if it was asleep, "Sunny Day."

Gloom's body glowed orange for a second before the sun seemed to intensify overhead. Not cool, because Naruto knew for a fact that the sun had moved out of being in an overhead position a long time ago. Yet there it was in all of its blazing yellow glory shoving its light right through the skylight and drenching the interior of the Gym.

Naruto had to squint it was so bright in there, "Gah, what's with the light? We could already see everything. There aren't any shadows in the whole Gym for Shuji-chan to use." He then noticed that being stuck in the unforgiving sunlight was making Shujinken uncomfortable, "Shuji-chan?"

"Ghost Pokémon are weaker in the glaring sunlight." Erika commented for Naruto's benefit. It wasn't like it mattered now, he couldn't switch his Misdreavus out or else he would forfeit the round without so much as a fight.

"No way, we train every morning! She was fine then!" Naruto argued, but his eyes couldn't unsee that Shujinken was indeed having trouble, "She never seemed like it hurt to be in the sunlight."

Janine understood though, and it was pretty devious of her flower-arranging old friend to go for it. She liked it though, "There's a difference between regular morning sunlight and the hard high noon, sweltering summer desert sun that Erika just had her Gloom call upon. Ghosts really can't deal with that." It was why they never came out in the daytime. In sunlight they were uncomfortable, but in a sunlight like the one they were involved with it was energy consuming.

More indirect fighting. That method had already gotten rid of Ranbouen in the last round, and now Erika was working it on his Misdreavus. This really was a Gym Leader. How like a ninja to find an alternative path to victory.

Naruto wasn't a fan though. But his opinion meant nothing, especially to Erika at the moment, "Mega Drain." From the center of Gloom's flower came a green beam that struck Naruto's off-guard Misdreavus, "Gloom isn't hurt, but this is meant to deal you damage instead."

"Confuse Ray!" From the center red orb of Shujinken's necklace she fired a red beam of he own that cut through the center of Gloom's Mega Drain beam and struck her, confusing her. The end of the energy draining attack gave Naruto an opening to look around for a way to fix things for his combatant, and eventually he spotted one that was perfect to allow her to get out of the sun, "Shuji-chan, go into the hole that Ranbouen dug to rest for a bit! I'll tell you when to come on out!"

Having not noticed the holes in the ground that had been created by her fellow Naruto party member, Shujinken shot Naruto a seemingly grateful smile before diving down underneath. She couldn't dive through solid objects to take cover or come up through the ground in places bathed in sunlight so it was much appreciated.

While Erika's Gloom continued to hurt itself worse and worse until it snapped out of confusion, a break in the shadows was just what the doctor ordered.

'That hole again.' Erika thought to herself as she got up from her place beneath the tree to direct Gloom's location, "Gloom stand here where you can keep both of the holes in your line of sight and aim." She then looked towards Naruto and locked eyes with him before speaking again, "Charge a SolarBeam and wait for his Misdreavus to come out."

'Fuck! Janine thought to herself. It wasn't her battle, but she had already picked sides and rooted for Naruto openly from even before the start, 'How does someone that falls asleep randomly battle so well?' She thought as pure light energy began to compound at the center of the flower on the top of Gloom's head.

Naruto's Pokémon was eventually going to have to come out, and Gloom's SolarBeam was fully charged almost immediately due to the blazing sunlight overhead, leaving no time for Shujinken to use the normal lag time between SolarBeam's charging process and firing the blast itself to leave the hole. She was trapped inside with no option to leave. The second she popped herself out of there it was going to be all over.

Naruto was a breath away from openly panicking with the sweat beginning to form underneath his headband on his forehead, 'What am I going to do, what am I going to do? If Shuji-chan comes out she'll get blown away, but all Erika is going to do is wait for her to come out.' He looked over at his opposing trainer and sweatdropped when he saw her sleeping only for her eyes to open when she felt him looking at her. How did she do that? He needed to learn how to do that, 'Damn it, we'll be here for the rest of the day until I make a move or surrender.'

Okay… for now things were fine. It was a stalemate. All he had to do was just hunker down and think of a way to counter. Erika's Gloom couldn't move without firing the SolarBeam, and that left Shujinken safe for the time being. As far as he knew there was no time limit, so it was just a test of patience and tactics. Just like shogi.

He hated that miserable game.

And apparently if Pokémon could play shogi, his Misdreavus wouldn't have had the patience for it either. Because Shujinken tried to make a break for it, flying out of one of the two holes as fast as she could.

Not fast enough to dodge a raging SolarBeam at all though.

"Fire!" Erika ordered the moment she saw the pink tips of Shujinken's hair tendrils. From Gloom's flower a bundled beam of white light that blasted Shujinken's form with all of the force mustered behind it, supercharged by the solar energy of the hot, hot sun in the sky.

The searing energy didn't stop at just hitting Naruto's Pokémon. It tore through much of the natural beauty of the Gym and in the aftermath of the attack revealed that it had ripped three trees in half, blew an entire wall out, and destroyed the glass of the skylight that fell freely onto the field.

"Shujinken!" Naruto shouted as he ran towards the hole that had been blown in the wall at the far end of the Gym, "No! Why'd you do that? I would have quit before letting that happen to you!" Reaching the farthest scene of the battle's destruction, Naruto looked high and low inside and outside for his little ghost.

Could a ghost Pokémon be killed? They could be hurt and badly injured like any other living organism, so they had to be able to die just like anything else as well. Just because they were ghosts didn't mean that they were undead or immortal right?

There wasn't any sign of Shujinken anywhere, but she had taken a direct hit from that SolarBeam that didn't slow down or break apart for a moment. From the power behind it, it had to have vaporized her…

Dropping to his knees, Naruto punched the solid ground as hard as he could and held a hand over his face, "Why did she leave the tunnel?" He muttered to himself quietly, "Why didn't she listen to me?" It was his fault she had been trapped down there, but disobeying him then wouldn't have fixed the situation at all, "I used her too soon. I've only had her for a few days."

A hand rested on his shoulder and Naruto turned his dejected view around to see that it was Janine, looking just as despondent as him, "Naruto… there's still one round left. Do you want to quit?"

Quit?

Not a chance in hell. Not now. Not after all of this.

Quickly wiping his eyes before anyone could see him, Naruto wordlessly shook his head and got back up before walking his way back to the center part of the Gym where Erika was still waiting, only now she was standing and bowing to him, "I truly apologize. As I said when we first met, I never wished to cause such harm to your Pokémon… but I am still a Gym Leader, and this was still a battle. If you're going to battle me for revenge, I won't fault you for such."

Naruto nodded without saying a word and held up his Poke Ball containing his Pokémon for his last choice, but before anything else could happen, from one of the holes in the ground flew out Shujinken who darted right at Erika's unprepared Gloom and unleashed a multicolored beam from her eyes that hit the grass-type flush in the body.

Erika covered her mouth to hide her stunned gaping expression and Naruto's jaw hung quite wide open at seeing his Misdreavus floating around Gloom's body, chattering her own name spiritedly because her use of Psybeam had just rendered Erika's last Pokémon unconscious with the mental blast.

"What the fuck?" Naruto screeched loudly and abrasively, "I thought she was dead! I saw her get hit! We all did! Somebody tell me what just happened! Do I owe the Shinigami a life debt now or something?" Did his Pokémon just come back to life?

The stunned referee realized that Gloom wasn't getting back up, and that was the third of Erika's Pokémon. That was the end of the battle, "The winner: Challenger Naruto!" She then ambled off holding her head. She needed a nap herself after all of that.

Janine's rapid footsteps preceded her reaching Naruto who was still looking utterly stunned as Shujinken flew around him doing victory laps, "I had no idea you'd taught any of your Pokémon how to do Double Team… you sly Move Tutor you. You should teach some of mine how to do that if you could teach her." The Shujinken that flew out of the hole first and got shot was just an illusion. A fake visual copy of the real one that remained underground.

"Double Te-… I didn't… wha-…" Naruto mumbled almost incoherently as he started walking forward like a zombie, "I just won… what the hell?" He looked at Shujinken who was hovering directly in front of his face at this point and reached out when the little banshee let him hold her up, "…Don't you ever… ever… ever do anything like that again… EVER!" He finished with a yell that blew Shunjinken's hair tendrils back, "How did you learn goddamn Double Team?"

Shujinken waited a second to let her hearing clear up from Naruto's shout before processing what he said and giving him a dry look as if to say, 'Seriously? You _really_ don't know where I picked that up from?'

How could she _not_ have picked it up? She'd seen him do it himself every damn day since they had first met. It was easier for a ghost Pokémon to understand the concept of Double Team than for other types with their spectral bodies.

Naruto walked over to Erika who recalled her Gloom with a sigh and looked over at the approaching ninja pair, "I concede defeat to you this time." She admitted before producing a badge in the appearance of a flower with rainbow-colored petals, "The Rainbow Badge is the prize for your victory. Due to the properties of the badge, Pokémon under your control will be enhanced by it like with the other badges."

"I can't take that." Naruto said with a frown, confusing Erika, "I didn't win that last battle. Shujinken beat you because you let your guard down after she disobeyed me and made everyone think she'd died." Misdirection was a battle tactic too, but it wasn't a good showing on him as a trainer that his Pokémon didn't listen to him and took things into their own hands.

In a real fight he'd take that win all the way to the bank, but this was an exhibition of skill. A contest with set rules and parameters. Rules that he felt he had violated. Damn him and his honorable streak.

"Your Misdreavus learned Double Team by your efforts either directly or indirectly, correct?" Erika asked, still holding out the Rainbow Badge for Naruto to take.

Furrowing his brow in thought and looking down at Shujinken who nodded to confirm this to him, Naruto carefully spoke, "…I think so?" The badge was then pinned onto the front of his orange summer outfit, "Hey."

"Then her victory was only due to what you taught her." Reasoned the elegant Gym Leader with a reassuring smile before bowing to Naruto again, under happier circumstances this time, "We met under unpleasant circumstances, but I would like to say that any friend of my little 'Nina is a friend of mine. I would like us to be friends as well." In response Naruto gave a bit of a bow in return.

"You know not to call me that…" Janine said with a glare that Erika returned with an innocent smile. She noticed a Cheshire-like grin on Naruto's face and decided to nip that in the bud right there, "I'm dead serious, do not call me that nickname Naruto. Call me Janine, that's all."

"Alright, alright…" Naruto said, holding his hands up defensively before snickering, "…'Nina…" Both Naruto and his Misdreavus cackled as they ran away from Janine's evil eye before she could try to do anything, "Aww, that name's so cute!" Naruto's voice rang out amidst his Pokémon's own laughter as he ran clear out of the Gym. He was going to the Pokémon Center post haste.

He was going to mess with her using that name until the end of time. Janine already knew it, "We're going to end up killing each other." She stated as if it were already written in stone, "He and I are going to kill each other before Otou-sama does or before his sensei returns. I just know it."

Seemingly taking the broken up state of her Gym well, Erika began walking with Janine towards the door after handing off her Pokémon to the underling Gym attendants to be taken care of within the facility, "Now, now. I don't believe it's quite that serious 'Nina." She said, eliciting another fierce look from Janine that she once again ignored, "Do you want to get dinner?"

Now that was an idea. She hadn't gotten to eat lunch because she had been looking around the city for Naruto. And Erika would obviously know where the best restaurant in town was, "Can I stay with you tonight in your awesome penthouse too just like old times?"

Erika smiled at her younger friend warmly in return, "Of course. I have the space, but what about your friend Naruto?" Putting up Janine for the duration of their stay was no problem, but having a boy in the midst was improper to say the least. She was a proper lady and had to appear accordingly.

This didn't seem to matter too much to Janine though, "He just won the purse from a battle with a Gym Leader. He's got the money to put himself up for a whole week at Celadon Hotel." And if he was too much of a tightwad for that he was good at camping out, "I haven't been here in forever. Tomorrow we need to hang out and-."

The two proceeded to chatter as they made their way out of the Gym and through the paved forest path back to town.

In a high corner rafter of the Gym, a small bipedal dark yellow Pokémon with brown armor on its chest, a long tail, and fox-like ears sat with its eyes closed, having overseen the entire battle as it had been dispatched by its master and staked out for days to do.

Its job now complete, the little Pokémon disappeared and used Teleport to leave the Gym without disturbing the attendants who were working to begin repairing the damage from Erika's battle.

XxX

(Saffron City Saffron City Gym)

Sitting in an empty white room, seemingly in a deep state of meditation, Sabrina's eyes opened and she smirked to no one in particular but herself, "Abra…" She said, and as if it had been summoned, the little Pokémon that had been spying in the Celadon Gym appeared from nowhere right in front of her, "Show me what you've seen."

Abra's eyes opened upon receiving the order and its eyes were glowing blue, as were Sabrina's eyes until the color suddenly shut off and its eyes closed back to their normally sleepy states.

Having received the information through the psychic connection she could establish with her Pokémon, Sabrina wordlessly dismissed her Abra so that it could rest. What a quaint little battle. On a lower scale than the one against Lt. Surge, but then again no one had been trying to kill the other. Erika always had been a goody-two-shoes.

There was a ruckus outside of her personal room, but Sabrina merely ignored it and returned to her meditation. It wasn't anything important enough to raise a finger for.

It steadily got louder and came closer before the doors to the room were thrown open, and four men using a karate gi and black headbands as their common uniform stormed inside, blocking her from being able to leave before a fifth man that looked less imposing but was clearly stronger than the rest entered.

He had spiky brown hair and sharp eyes, standing tall and muscular, but not so much that it seemed to get in his way like with the others. He wore tattered white karate gi bottoms and a black sleeveless shirt to go with a red band around his right bicep and a white headband on his head, "I want my Gym reestablished as Saffron City's official Pokémon Gym Sabrina." He demanded firmly yet coolly.

"Karate Master Kiyo, you barged into my room without knocking. How rude. What if I had been indecent?" Sabina greeted lightly with her eyes still closed, "I'm afraid I'm not going to do what you want though. I crushed you and your Fighting Dojo Gym by myself, so the city understandably decided to recognize my Gym as the official one in this city. You could always move and go to Johto. I hear they have a fighting Pokémon Gym there that you could try to take over from their current leader."

"It's a matter of honor, and of respect. I can't let you keep on doing what you're doing with _those people_… using this Gym's privileges." Kiyo said with his eyes narrowing on her form, "If you won't return Gym rights to me I'll take them just like you did. I've been training nonstop for the last year since you beat me."

A smirk came to Sabrina's face, "By all means, show me then. I won't even use my Pokémon against you and your own Pokémon. That would be overkill and I want you to have a 'fighting' chance of defeating me this time."

"If you won't use any Pokémon then neither will I." Kiyo insisted. He could battle evenly with his own fighting Pokémon and even defeat some of them in combat. He was confident in his own skills as a single combatant, even more than any of his underling trainers ever would be, "Let's begin." He said, dropping into a fighting stance and moving towards her slowly.

"Let's." Sabrina agreed, lifting a hand and pointing it at Kiyo. His body stiffened straight up while he remained standing, "What's wrong? I thought you were ready." She asked, feigning innocence.

Kiyo couldn't move an inch no matter how much his body tried to struggle. It simply wasn't listening to him, and his followers were horrified as he was lifted from the ground by seemingly nothing as a blue outline was visible around his frame, "H-How are you doing this? You can control living beings?" Only Pokémon had psychic abilities that advanced.

"It's admittedly more difficult than I thought it would be to restrain you. Your body is surprisingly strong. Lt. Surge should take his workout lessons from you. But-." Sabrina had a wicked little smile on her face as she opened her eyes to reveal them to be glowing blue, "-My mind is more powerful than your body."

With a push of her arm her telekinesis sent Kiyo flying clear out of the room, down the long main corridor that lead to her private room, and straight out of the front door of the Gym where he didn't stop for at least fifty yards, rolling violently like a ragdoll on the ground before coming to a motionless stop.

The frightened remaining martial artists looked back towards the young psychic woman who lowered her hand and returned to her state of meditation as they chattered amongst themselves, "I don't get it… I thought that the Leader of this Gym would be weak. Her underlings didn't even try to battle us when we came inside."

"My attendants didn't fight you because if they had you never would have made it here at all. You didn't honestly think my psychic-type trainers were afraid of fighting-types did you?" Sabrina interrupted after having overheard the muscleheads, "Even Kiyo, as strong as he truly is would have been winded upon making it to me. And I wanted the workout from him trying to defeat me. I have a personal trip I'm about to take and I needed the tune-up fight."

The doors to Sabrina's room then slammed shut, trapping the fighting Pokémon trainers inside despite their best efforts to yank the doors back open. As they focused on the doors they didn't notice that their Poke Balls were floating away from them until they were too far away to reach.

They turned around again to see Sabrina's eyes open with their blue glow once more, indicating that she was the one holding the doors shut with her personal psychic abilities, "…Kiyo will keep trying to defeat me as long as I allow him to fight another day, but you're all just plain weak and I have no respect for you trash."

Screams erupted from the inside of Sabrina's personal room, but the other trainers of Saffron Gym just deemed the upstarts from the nearby Fighting Dojo fools for believing that they could overcome Sabrina with brute force.

Kiyo would definitely need some new underlings after he recovered though. Even if the lot of this batch survived the lesson they were being taught, there was a serious doubt that they would ever want to challenge the true Gym of Saffron City again.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 9: Celadon City<span>

"I have seriously got to remember how to get to this continent later. Minato remarked to himself and to his squad that included Genma and Raido. They had gone to the largest building in the city, the Celadon Department Store, and ate lunch on the roof where there was a tremendous view of the huge city, "I'm seriously thinking about taking Kushina here on a honeymoon. A cruise and then a sightseeing trip around Kanto, just the two of us."

"Kushina hates ships." Raido commented as he sipped on a can of soda while sitting at a picnic table with Genma. Minato was over by the gated off edge of the building looking at all that he could see, "…And travelling in general."

"You haven't even asked Kushina to marry you yet and you've got the honeymoon planned?" Genma asked amusedly at their captain, "Minato-senpai you dog."

"Oh that's enough out of you two." Minato said, turning to give them a deadpan look before he thought about something else that he needed some input on, "Hey, maybe I should bring a Pokémon back home for Kushina to raise? You know, like a present. A pet."

"Give her a Voltorb. Those are fun." Raido sarcastically cracked, glaring at Genma who grinned and held up a Poke Ball containing his own Voltorb that he had been using to torment Raido since the day he caught it.

"Give her a Vulpix." Genma countered rather insightfully as he chewed on his senbon, "It's appropriate… kind of. And I think she'll get a kick out of it. Plus it's cute. What kind of girl wouldn't go for something like that? I bet a whole B-rank mission's pay that it'll get you laid on sight." Minato slapped him on the head so fast he didn't even see him move from his spot by the fence.

"You don't get to think about Kushina naked. That's for me to do." Minato stated firmly… because he knew what such a thing actually looked like. And it was indeed glorious. Kami he wanted to go home. He was not going to leave that bed with his girlfriend for a damn week when he got back to Konoha, war or not, "Get your own girlfriend."

"Alright, I will." Genma said as he rubbed his head where Minato hit him and stood up, "I'm going to go get a Kanto girlfriend… have fun sitting here with blue balls. You coming Raido?" He asked his two year elder teen as Minato silently bit back the urge to throw Genma off of the roof.

Raido just pointed to the still rather fresh scar on his face with no humor on his face whatsoever, "What girl am I not going to scare away with this thing on my face? This isn't a warrior's continent like the Elemental Nations. That kind of thing isn't cool here."

"Chicks dig awesome scar stories if you can back it up. Tell 'em you fought a Zapdos and lived. I bet that'll work."

"I just got hit by lightning from a Zapdos."

"But you lived. That counts."

"…I'm in. Later Minato-senpai. Sorry about your blue balls."

Ignoring his underlings leaving the roof of the department store to try and find themselves a lovely female or two to woo within the different floors of the building, Minato just sighed and kept staring out at Celadon City before he started banging his head on the fence, "Damn it, we need more money to get the rest of the supplies for the return trip. I want to go home…"

It would still be quite a while though, and he was settled in for the long haul of it all.

This had to be his karma for abusing the Hiraishin so much. But it was the coolest damn thing he had ever come up with! That was his right!

Even so… there had been a stretch of time after he created it where he wouldn't go to get a glass of water in his own home without using it to get to the cabinet to get a glass, to the sink to work the tap, and back to the couch that he had gotten up from to begin with.

He looked up in the sky and saw a black crow Pokémon, Murkrow circling him overhead and cawing tauntingly as if it could tell what Minato and the Konoha ninja's problems were. He was tempted to send his Noctowl up to battle it.

Yes, this was definitely karma.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe) Male   
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire).

Hogohei (Cloyster) Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal), Spike Cannon (Normal).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee) Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting), Revenge (Fighting).

Sazakumoru (Cubone) Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock), Swords Dance (Normal).

Shujinken (Misdreavus) Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Growl (Normal), Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Double Team (Normal).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug), Flash (Normal).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Zubat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying), Wing Attack (Flying).

Venonat: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal).

Pineco: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Protect (Normal), Selfdestruct (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Take Down (Normal), Gyro Ball (Steel), Bide (Normal).

Erika's Current Pokémon Team

Tangela: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Ingrain (Grass), Constrict (Normal), Sleep Powder (Grass), PoisonPowder (Poison), Mega Drain (Grass), Growth (Grass), Vine Whip (Grass), Bind (Normal), Slam (Normal).

Gloom: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Sweet Scent (Normal), PoisonPowder (Poison), Giga Drain (Grass), Cut (Normal), Bullet Seed (Grass), Sunny Day (Fire), Toxic (Poison), SolarBeam (Grass).

Weepinbell: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Razor Leaf (Grass), Wrap (Normal), Stun Spore (Grass), Acid (Poison), Knock Off (Dark), Flash (Normal), Hidden Power (Normal).

Vileplume: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Mega Drain (Grass), Stun Spore (Grass), Aromatherapy (Grass), Petal Dance (Grass), Sludge Bomb (Poison), SolarBeam (Grass), Hyper Beam (Normal).

* * *

><p><strong>Another battle, another badge… and another mounting threat coming right for the protagonist party. What a life. It reminds me of my life only instead of badges I collect college credits… and my fights don't have me hurling fire and pure energy all over… just my arms and legs.<strong>

**Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed and will continue to do so in the future. I hope that I gave you a short little fifteen-to-twenty minute reprieve in your everyday life to just veg out a bit.**

**And now I have to go half-listen to a 3 hour lecture while I start on writing a paper that is due tomorrow and that I don't even have the book for that I need to cite sources from.**

…**I was thinking about writing a bunch of angry curse words here to illustrate my resentment, but why bother? Nobody cares. If I pull it off I'm the baddest man on the planet just like always, and if I don't it doesn't really affect you either way so that's that.**

**Kenchi out. The world, she is a knockin' at my front door.**

**And she's got a battering ram.**

**Later folks.**


	11. Mind Over Matter

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. If I had a Pokémon I would get a Machoke. That fucker is huge and strong, so if I taught it submission wrestling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu I would always have a sparring partner that was stronger than me. Talk about trial by fire… I'd have to get better every single day just to keep up or I'd be crippled for life.

…Anderson Silva or GSP would still rip out my ever-beating heart and devour it before my eyes prior to my death if we were to ever fight and Jon Jones would elbow a brand new divot into my head, but that is neither here nor there.

**Chapter 11: Mind Over Matter**

* * *

><p>Naruto sat in the middle of Celadon City's beautiful park with a pensive look on his face due to the map strewn out in front of him, "I don't get it. It's a three hour walk that way." He said, pointing directly east of their location, "A three hour <em>walk<em>. That's like a forty-five minute run. So why go around the ass-end of the entire continent just to get to another city with a Gym?"

"Well if that's not a huge exaggeration…" Janine replied as she and Erika sat out on a picnic blanket, choosing to take a rest for once and enjoy the day in town instead of moving along to the next place, "I'd rather not have to fight off an entire city's guard because you're antsy. They won't let anyone through for security reasons so we'll just have to come back to Saffron City. What's the rush babyface?"

A thoughtful frown marred Naruto's face as he kept perusing the map, "None I guess."

A calm-looking Erika serenely sipped at her tea as the traveling pair of ninjas discussed their future travel plans, "The only thing worse than being jittery and overactive is being these things while having no real reason to be so. Simply calm down. You don't seem to be that interested in collecting badges either so I can't imagine what the reason would be."

Sheepish laughter came from Naruto at being called out on the Gym Badge thing, "Heh, you noticed that? I guess I'm just really competitive and I like the challenge."

"To each their own I guess." Erika responded with a pleasant smile, "Either way, you defeated me so I can't make one assumption or another on the matter at this point."

Naruto just gave the Celadon City Gym Leader a grinning thumbs up before turning his attention back to the map, "Hey, the next major city is Fuchsia City, so why do we have to go all the way back around to Lavender Town and then all the way back around the south routes to get there? If we head west first there's a road south that'll take us right there."

Both Janine and Erika looked at each other, one with an urging look to simply spit out the reason and the other with a look that requested that she be allowed to do it on her own time. Eventually Erika backed down with a sigh and let Janine do as she pleased. It was hardly her business, "It's because you're not ready for a battle with that Gym Leader yet. Just trust me, by the time we get there from the other way at the rate you're progressing your Pokémon will be ready to roll."

He hadn't been steered wrong thus far, so Naruto assumed that it would be alright. He also assumed that this was one of those 'bad' Gym Leaders that Janine had alluded to back when she had given him the whole explanation on Lt. Surge; the kind that would try to go for the throat and kill him in battle if need be.

Though he still didn't like being told that he wasn't ready to fight against someone, even indirectly. That really stuck in his craw. He'd been hearing that crap since the first real battles he had been fighting as a ninja.

Still, again there was no rush. Jiraiya told him they would not be returning to the Elemental Nations for three years, and they had only been there for two months of that thus far. Man, when he thought about that it was kind of like a kick to the stones. That was a long-ass time!

Part of growing as a ninja though was knowing when to pick a fight, and when to back down, and since there was absolutely no rush he supposed he could go Janine's intended route. Besides, that would give him more time to log the data for more Pokémon into his Pokédex. He'd fill that bad boy up, and then he'd have tons to show Tsunade once he returned. Because that was how he rolled on S-rank missions!

Or it would be once he had more to his name other than just this one that was supposed to be an excuse to get him away from Konoha.

"Right!" Janine said cheerfully, "Well since we have a new plan of travel set, let's get ready for the trip!" She got a smile and a nod of agreement from Erika who seemed ready to do whatever, but when she turned to Naruto he had already walked fifteen feet away, "Wha-? Where are you going?"

"_Not_ shopping for things I don't want with my money, that's for damn sure." Naruto muttered back, knowing that getting ready for a trip was code for blowing money in a store, "I'm gonna take what I've got and invest it."

Both Janine and Erika looked at each other curiously. That was… surprisingly forward thinking for someone like Naruto, "Ano… investing in what exactly?" Erika wondered while Janine just shrugged, just as confused as she was.

XxX

(Some Time Later – Rocket Game Corner)

"Come on baby…" Naruto said to himself as his eyes were locked on the rapidly moving reels of the slot machine he was sitting down at. He was just one of dozens of patrons to the local casino, but apparently he was one of the most successful due to how many people were lined up around his machine looking rather displeased.

"Get up kid!" One of the people watching Naruto take his turn at the slots said, "That machine's got to be the easiest one, so stop hogging it already!"

"What does a kid like you need with all of those coins anyway?"

"Let someone else have a turn before they fix whatever's wrong with it!"

Whatever. With as much gambling as Naruto had seen between Jiraiya and Tsunade he was doubly-apprenticed in that regard. He knew how to play every single game in there, he just preferred how simple the slots were.

It wasn't a matter of him picking between machines. He didn't care. Weren't the machines supposed to all run the same anyway? That was kind of the point of mass-producing things.

Getting tired of all of the distracting noise, Naruto growled and turned around in his chair to yell at the pushy people, "Shut up! Maybe your machines aren't bad, maybe you all just suck! Did you ever think of that?" He spouted before turning back around to stop the reels, "Seven, seven, seven! I'm awesome!" His bag for holding his coins was already ready to be filled.

Hearing Naruto cackle madly as the coins flew freely from the payout point of his machine rubbed some of the younger, biker-looking casino-goers the wrong way as they brandished Poke Balls with an intent to teach the young man some humility, "Maybe we should show this kid that gambling is a dangerous vice."

"I'm thinking you've got a point there. Go Raticate!"

"Primeape, beat some respect into junior here! Fury Swipes!"

A very ugly, large, tan and light brown colored rat came out of one of the men's Poke Balls while from the other sprang an angry-looking Pokémon with a furry round white body, a pig snout and pig ears, a monkey-like tail, and fists and feet that seemed tailor-made for physical combat.

Naruto's luck seemed to hold out beyond gambling, because he ducked his head to tie his bag closed right when the Primeape tried to swing at the back of his head, "Oi!" Turning around, Naruto smacked the Pokémon back a short ways with his heavy sack full of loot, "Screw off! I didn't do anything to you!"

But no matter where you were in the world, jerks would be jerks and they were all the same regardless of nationality, "Quick Attack!" Naruto was then knocked to the ground by the exceptionally fast Raticate that slammed into him with the temporary speed of a motor vehicle.

On the ground, Naruto rolled out of the way of a heavy boot that was intended to stomp dead down on his chest as he continued to hold onto his sack, "Okay, I wanted to cash out and leave, but now I'm pissed. Sazakumoru, come on out!" At Naruto's throwing of his intended Poke Ball, out came his Cubone who looked at her larger opposition and shakily held up her bone in defense.

Both of the biker attackers laughed at Naruto's choice of creature to help him defend himself, and even their Pokémon seemed smug at the selection, "A timid runt for a timid runt I guess. It's appropriate! Put that brat out of our misery." With that order, the Raticate and Primeape moved to simultaneously attack again.

"Saza-chan isn't timid!" Naruto argued before issuing his command, "Bonemerang!" Sazakumoru threw her bone at the incoming assailants and smacked both of them on their heads, knocking them back into their trainers with the force generated, "How do you like that?"

Not done yet, the Raticate's trainer wasn't about to be embarrassed by some kid, "Hyper Fang!" The dangerous rat Pokémon rushed the Cubone that it perceived as the realer threat, but found that its intention to bite down and injure it was stopped by a bone in its mouth, "What?" The trainer then received a fist in his mouth from Naruto that knocked his lights (and a few teeth) out.

The master-less Raticate struggled against Sazakumoru because it had no trainer to issue any command to give it real battle direction. But Saza still had hers, and he saw the Primeape coming her way, "Headbutt!" Cocking her head back, Sazakumoru smashed her bone helmeted head into the Raticate's face and knocked it back into the Primeape, stunning them both severely, "Bone Club!" Another massive overhead swing of her bone knocked them both out cold.

From his place on the ground, the biker that was still conscious tried to crawl away from the fight that he and his friend had started but found that his foot was caught by Naruto stepping on his heel. Uneasily turning around to look up at the displeased blonde he held his hands together in a begging fashion, "C-Come on kid… give me a break huh?"

Naruto just wordlessly pointed at the slot machine that he had been sitting at. There was a massive trench of a dent in the machine that was almost where his head had been for the Primeape's Fury Swipes attack, "You mean a break like that? Okay sure." Naruto then lifted his sandaled foot off of the ground to stomp an imprint of his sole into the man's face.

"I'm sorry!"

With that, Naruto stopped his stomp kick short of scrambling his opponent's facial features and pulled back with a grin on his face, "That's better! No harm done." Aside from the broken slot machine, the two broken chairs, and the groove that had been worked into the floor itself from the fight. Feeling a weight against his leg, Naruto looked down to see Sazakumoru clinging to him with big teary eyes, "You did good Saza-chan. Come on, let's go cash out and find Janine."

Reaching the prize corner of the casino, Naruto set down his huge sack on the desk in front of a nervously smiling attendant, "Sorry about that." The woman behind the table that took his coins said, "This is a casino so we attract all types here, especially the roughnecks as you can clearly see. And when they get on a losing streak…" She trailed off.

Waving off the concern, Naruto also wordlessly indicated that he just wanted to cash out, no prizes or anything like that. He needed that money back.

As he counted through how much more he had earned over the course of two hours on his way out, the apparent security of the casino moved over towards Naruto. When one of them rested a hand on Naruto's shoulder, trying to get his attention to have a conversation over his altercation, Sazakumoru panicked and thought that there was still fight going on, and she clubbed the man to the ground with her bone.

"Whoa!" Naruto said, immediately kneeling down to hold onto his Cubone, "It's okay, they're just security." He explained as more security came out to see to their injured coworker, "Uh, I'm really sorry about that."

When you screwed up you screwed up, and he screwed up if only by accident. Twice. But he liked that damn place and he didn't want to be blackballed from it.

This time the security that came out didn't seem like a regular bunch of bodies meant to watch over the casino. And when they saw Naruto, their eyes widened before they schooled their expressions, "It's okay." One of them said to Naruto, escorting him toward the back of the casino, "We just need to get your account of the fight you were just in so we can exclude your from blame in the destruction of casino property."

Oh the Team Rocket admins were going to hand out some promotions when they got a hold of this one.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Celadon Department Store)

A pouting Janine perused the wares of the fourth floor of the large store. It was mostly trinkets such as jewelry, accessories, dolls… mostly little trifles of materials. Oh, except for the fact that they sold 'special' stones there. Maybe she'd get one as something of a show of good faith. He gave her a stone after all, even if it was a gift for the work they did in Lavender Town.

Janine felt that she still had to apologize appropriately for that little fight of passion that she got them involved in, but that took a backseat to what she had currently been thinking, "Naruto could have at least handed over the Moon Stones before he took off. If ever there was a place to sell them it was here." She'd just have to retrieve them from him when they met back up, "This place wouldn't stiff us on the price."

She still had that thing about money apparently, which explained why Naruto took off so fast when the object of shopping came up, "You really should tone that back." Erika said, observing the stones on display such as Leaf, Fire, Lightning, and Water Stones, "He more than likely believes that you were going to find a way to spend his money if he had come along."

Janine scoffed and walked over to her nearby friend, "No way. I'd have sold the stones and then used my share of that money. And I made my own money when we went on that tear battling against people on the roads. I don't need to bring his into it."

"You met when you stole from the Pewter City Museum."

"-Sort of successfully I might add 'cuz Naruto still has the Old Amber on him somewhere."

"-Right." Erika said dryly before continuing with her point, "In addition to that, you probably still get excited whenever anything involving money comes up."

An offended-looking Janine put a mortified hand over her chest at what her Gym Leader friend was saying, "I don't get excited over anything involving money. I only get excited over sure things when it comes to getting money… or when there's a chance that I can lose a lot of it for a stupid reason." She didn't need to see Erika's face as she started looking through different things to know that there was a victorious smile on her face, "You know, you can just-."

Anything she was about to say was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Naruto who slid to a clumsy stop in front of her after dodging several displays, "Hey, I found someone to sell the Moon Stones to, willing to buy them for more than this place'll take 'em for!"

"Really?" Janine asked in surprise. No way, that couldn't have been what Naruto had been doing, "But why did you come to me then? You should have just sold them to get the money. You think I'd be mad over getting a bigger profit than I expected?"

Naruto backed up a step or two and looked away, "Oh okay… well just give me the Moon Stones and I'll come back with the money." He said, recovering with a bright grin.

Janine just stared at him for a second before shrugging to herself as she reached for her travel bag, "Okay, just hurry on back so we can count it all up." Naruto's face lit up in an even larger grin until things took a sudden downward turn from there, "Ariados, String Shot!"

Naruto had a confused look that turned to horror when he found himself bound from shoulders-to-toe by powerful webbing while Janine sat on her large red and black spider Pokémon, "Wh-What are you doing?" Naruto asked as he finally lost his balance and fell to the ground.

"You're not Naruto." Janine said in a bored manner while Erika had long since turned over to see what the quick ruckus had been all about, "You really shouldn't try to pull disguises over on people that use them."

"I looked like him and acted just like him." 'Naruto' said as the face and entire appearance that 'he' had turned into a purple blob stuck inside of the web bindings with a girl that had run into them before. Green, trying to steal from them again, "How did it not work?"

Lifting up a hand, Janine started ticking off reasons on her fingers, "Naruto's hyper-clumsy, but he's not when he's paying attention; you oversold the way that he moves. Naruto doesn't give a rat's ass about what we get for the Moon Stones, only I'm the one that really cares. Naruto doesn't ask permission for anything, so if he really saw a place to sell that stuck out that much he would have just done it. And the last and worst thing that you did: Naruto's the one that holds on to the damn things to begin with."

"Even after I stole them from him last time?" Green said in disbelief as she continued to try and wiggle free in vain. Where was store security damn it? There weren't any battles allowed inside of the store. Sure, the entire run-in took fifteen seconds, but still, "Let me go."

A swipe of one of Ariados's legs and Green found herself freed of the webbing. Janine figured that it would look bad if she was indeed seen with someone trapped from her Pokémon's webs so she let her go. Either way, it wasn't like Green could pull anything off now that she had the attention that was cast upon her, "You know this person?" Erika asked, not really liking the showy black dress that she was wearing.

A wry smile came to Janine's lips as Green returned her Ditto to its Poke Ball, "This is Green. She tried to steal from me in the past and failed. Somehow she thought it would work again after a second try." She didn't even feel like trying to kick her ass for it either since it failed far quicker this time around.

"Oh come on." Green said, picking stray threads of spider silk off of her clothes with a frown, "You say that like I followed you all the way here. It was just a chance run-in that I decided to take a stab at, that's all." Looking around, she couldn't locate Naruto anywhere, "So where's the other kid anyway?"

Honestly, she had half-expected Naruto to be the one to blow her cover, and that was the worst-case scenario that she had been hoping for if it came to that. That way at least she could have played it off as that technique that he used to make copies of himself.

"Gambling." Janine deadpanned. Another reason why she knew that the Ditto-transformed Green wasn't Naruto, because no one came back from a casino that excited ever. They usually slowly slogged into a room reeking of shame and defeat after losing a large chunk of all of their money.

Apparently Naruto had yet to make any monetary wages in front of Janine, otherwise she would have known better than to assume such.

But the face of Green told another story. One that didn't seem to be so pleasant, "Oh, don't tell me he went to that place here in town?"

"Why?"

XxX

(Underneath Rocket Game Corner – Team Rocket Hideout – Basement 4th Floor)

Rocket Game Corner.

Team Rocket.

Straight over his head. But then again he had been cleaning house in that place so he didn't care until it actually mattered.

Ugh, if Jiraiya ever found out what had just happened to him he would never live it down.

He put Sazakumoru back into her Poke Ball and the moment they took him to the back he got himself grabbed by the strongest Pokémon that had ever managed to put its hands on him. A large grey humanoid Pokémon with incredible muscles, black tights, and a belt around its waist.

It felt like it could have crushed him if it came to that, but no not on this day apparently. Instead they walked him down into some kind of basement facility and handcuffed him. They took his Poke Balls of course, but he could still see where they were. Apparently they thought that handcuffing him and locking him in a room was more than adequate to deal with him.

At least they thought enough of him to handcuff him by binding one of his hands to the opposite ankle behind his back. How new and awkward of a method to bind him. Kudos.

"This is bullshit." Naruto muttered as he looked across the room from his spot laying down on his side; that was how they dropped him and left him, "Who leaves someone in the same room with all of their gear?" In their defense, even if he got to his stuff there was no way that he could even grab it, "It's mocking me."

They had holed him up in an office and dropped him on a couch until they could get their superior to get to him. To hell with that. He was not going to hang around and wait for those gorillas to get someone else to do whatever they wanted after he had raised hell amongst them repeatedly.

Time to make a daring getaway; ninja style.

First thing was first though. Naruto got up painstakingly onto his knees given his strange position, but the cushiness of the couch worked against him. His original plan was to roll forward all cool and smooth onto the floor on his back, but instead he wound up spilling forward and doing a header onto the cold, hard ground. Every cloud has its silver lining though, and this one was in the fact that after nearly cracking his skull open on the floor he landed on his back where he needed to be anyway.

Probable concussion aside, Naruto managed to shake his headband off of his forehead and onto the floor where a bobby pin lay in the inside folds of the cloth. Thank goodness he had a girl to steal them from as emergency lock picks. From there he grabbed it in his mouth and pulled his shackled ankles up toward his mouth close enough to begin unlocking them.

It took roughly five minutes because Naruto would never boast flexibility as one of his many, many talents, but it didn't matter because eventually he freed himself enough to sit up normally and finish getting the cuffs off of his hands.

Fighting the urge to do a quick victory dance, Naruto ran across the room and grabbed all of his stuff off of the desk. Putting his supply pouches back on and making sure that all of his Poke Balls that contained his Pokémon were still there, he then had to figure a way to bust himself out of there.

"_Where are you going sweetie?"_

The voice that suddenly appeared in Naruto's head was feminine and rather condescending in how it sounded, "The hell out of here." He mumbled to himself, not really wanting to find out who that was. If they could beam words into his head from wherever they were he'd rather not figure out what else they could do.

"_So soon? And I was looking forward to meeting you face to face. You're an interesting guy you know. The Boss really wants to see what makes you tick with all of your weird powers."_

'Whatever, whatever, whatever.' Naruto left the office with all of his equipment and found a service elevator nearby down the hall that he quickly tapped the button repeatedly to get open, 'Leave me alone creepy lady in my head.' He'd have threatened to kick her ass, but he didn't even know where her ass was to kick.

A ding of the elevator let Naruto know that it had reached his level at last and the doors opened only for Naruto to be thrown back with a rather crushing unseen force that sent him into a wall hard enough to splinter into it. The young blonde let out a groan as he pulled himself off of the spider-web cracked wall and fell on his face on the ground.

Footsteps from the elevator as the door closed sent Naruto's attention to the person that had just stepped out of it. A girl with long dark purple hair and sharp eyes that seemed to work for Team Rocket based on the white t-shirt she wore over her clothes with the red 'R' on it simply stood smirking at him, "I told those idiots to make sure that you wouldn't go anywhere before I got here, but I guess underestimating children is a curse around here."

Standing next to her was a yellow bipedal Pokémon with two cat-like ears on its head, a big pointed nose, and thick white fur around its neck. In one of its hands it held pendulum as it stared at Naruto with sleepy eyes.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked as he started standing back up, ready to fight his way out. It seemed that was what it was coming to. If that was to be the case then so be it, "You're the girl that was talking inside of my head aren't you?"

The sharp eyes of this girl looked him over thoroughly as she rested one hand on her hip. She didn't look very impressed at whatever she was searching for, "You're one of the two kids that defeated Lt. Surge in Vermillion City." She thought that seeing things through Surge's eyes would have skewed his perspective on Naruto, but that was clearly not to be, "…I didn't think you'd be three years younger than me though." _"Hypno, use __Confusion__."_ She ordered mentally.

Naruto wasn't really listening either way though. An enemy was in front of him, and he needed to get her out of the way. The fact that she was wearing a Team Rocket shirt made him feel better about it as well.

From waging mock battles against Janine's Venonat, he knew that the dangerous psychic attack Confusion required the target of the attack to be in the middle of the user's line of sight for it to work. Well he was fast enough to get past that, even if he didn't know it was coming which he didn't.

And that was exactly what he planned on. Before he was even aware that Confusion was the intended technique that the Hypno planned on using, Naruto was up and zig-zagging off of the walls of the hallway trying to make himself a difficult target to hit. Still, he wound up getting past the yellow psychic Pokémon and through to the girl herself, 'Knock out the trainer and the Pokémon is way easier to beat.' That was the mantra in Naruto's head.

"I agree." Naruto found himself stopped in his tracks before he got within punching distance though, and the girl standing in front of him had a blue glow to her eyes, "The quickest way to resolve a battle is to simply destroy the trainer. So you can't be a pushover, right?" With a wave of her hand she threw Naruto hard back down the hall.

He was able to get his feet underneath him and managed to slide his way backwards on the floor with a loud skid noise, "What was that?"

"Let me introduce myself." The girl said, still very confident in her chances of winning this battle, "I am the Gym Leader of the Saffron City Gym and one of the Team Rocket Elite Triad; Sabrina. And if you haven't figured it out by now I train psychic Pokémon… and my own psychic abilities."

Okay. Kind of weird. Really weird actually, but still… "I don't care!" Naruto yelled as he grabbed a Poke Ball, "Go Shuji-chan!" And out came Naruto's little dark banshee of a Pokémon, ready to fight.

A cute little ghost Pokémon against a psychic-type. Not a bad course of action to take when it came to base type advantage strategy. But it was an equally risky gamble to take for both sides. It wasn't as if a psychic Pokémon couldn't hurt a ghost just as badly as the other way around.

"_Future Sight__."_

Sabrina's Hypno had a momentary blue glow around its body that put Naruto on guard, but when nothing happened he decided to take the initiative himself, "Astonish!" Naruto commanded as he ran forward with Shujinken ahead of him. As they moved forward she let out a loud wail that released a purple shockwave that peeled paint from the walls and dirt from the floor.

Hypno recoiled sharply and stumbled back several steps from the attack of Naruto's Misdreavus but recovered despite this. Naruto stormed past Shujinken and again tried to attack Sabrina, but it was useless as she seemed to effortlessly dance out of the way of his punches.

She didn't seem to be much of a full-contact fighter, and she was barely watching his feet to get his steps down, so how was she able to stay ahead of his attack?

"You think so loudly." Sabrina said aloud as she backed against a wall. Naruto threw another punch that she ducked, letting him punch a hole right through it as she moved out of the way again, "If I couldn't hear pick your intended moves out of your thoughts I'd have to be psychically deaf. Hypno, Secret Power."

The first verbal attack that she called for her Pokémon since the fight had begun was something of a doozy. Floor tiles began to rise up from the floor before flying Naruto's way like shuriken. He covered up and let them smash and break on his body. He could take something like that even though they hurt like hell, but he wound up not having to worry about such a thing when Shujinken got close and grabbed a hold of him with her tendrils, turning him intangible like a ghost to render the tiles useless against him.

Once he became tangible again, Naruto crouched down and formed a cross seal with his index and middle fingers, "Thank you Shuji-chan. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"

'Now this is what I was expecting from the start.' Sabrina thought to herself as the hallway found itself filled with several more copies of Naruto, "Alright… that's creative. A Double Team, a Substitute… or both combined since they know how to fight." Now that was interesting. And reading thoughts was now useless because there were too many of them and they all sounded like the original, _"__Hypnosis__."_

Hypno's pendulum began to glow and swing, and the mass of humanity walling off part of the hall fell prey to the flashy little accessory, becoming lethargic and eventually falling asleep. This didn't bring as much satisfaction to Sabrina as she would have liked, as after Naruto's clones had gone under she couldn't see the original or his Misdreavus anywhere in the corridor.

Tricky little shit wasn't he?

She was starting to see why underestimating him got someone even as destructive as Lt. Surge beaten. He was a little too dangerous for that. And it was a mistake that she wouldn't be making. Time to crush the brat.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Celadon City Streets)

A leash. That was the best option. Or maybe someone would have to train him? Yeah, train him like a Pokémon so that he didn't wind up getting himself stuck in such outlandish situations on a regular basis. The old guy Jiraiya told her to try and help keep him out of trouble… well Janine didn't think that such a thing was an actual concern!

He had to go to some place owned by the people that wanted to gut him (and probably her too if she were to try and be honest).

Green could hear Janine muttering to herself as they both flew through the air over many of the buildings en route to the Rocket Game Corner. She was hanging on to her inflated Jigglypuff while Janine was hanging on to the feet of what seemed to be her recently evolved Golbat, "Why am I coming again?" She really didn't want to be there. She didn't even have a stake in the situation.

"Because you're the one that told me about the damn place otherwise I wouldn't have known." Janine said as she kept her eyes peeled on the ground below. Besides, it didn't take nearly as much convincing that she thought it would to get her to come along. That was weird, but at the moment any ally would be a good one, "I mean really? You're telling me you've run up against Team Rocket before?" She didn't seem like the type to get into a fight with people like that for anything.

"I stole from them if that's what you mean." Of course she did. Why not? That made just about as much sense as a high-priority base being hidden underneath a casino, "Right from that base too, so I definitely know. And I'm not too keen on going back in case they saw my face, so I'm going to turn around from here."

It was a crappy copout kind of situation, but it wasn't Green's fight either. She had nothing to get out of helping other than gratitude, and if she didn't see that as enough reason to stick her neck out it couldn't be helped, "Fine… thanks for your help I guess."

The dismissal was a sweet one to Green who just smiled and directed her Jigglypuff to veer off out of the direction where the danger most certainly would lie. She wasn't going anywhere near that place, "I actually hope that blonde kid will end up being alright. He was kind of cute if you can look past the freaky abilities and the stupid." Her voice reached across the sky to Janine as she floated away.

With a roll of her eyes, Janine focused on locating the Rocket Game Corner. For a casino it was a pretty subtle building actually. Prompting her Golbat to make a landing before recalling it into its Poke Ball, she simply walked inside hoping that Naruto was alright. She just ignored the two tough-looking guys out front crying over how they and their Pokémon had gotten beaten up inside.

The place seemed pretty calm. No one appeared to care about what was going on other than what was up with their coins and chips.

Marching right up to the front desk she leaned forward on the counter and stared right at the attendant, "Did you see a kid my age and my height with blonde hair, orange summer clothes, and a really noisy disposition any time today?" She asked in a no-nonsense kind of manner, "He was probably wearing a blue headband with a metal leaf plate on it."

"I'm afraid we haven't had anyone like that." The female attendant behind the desk said, pleasantly letting the kunoichi down. Although there was a subtle twitch in her smile when she formed it, and that was something that Janine caught.

Before she could try and call the woman on it and press further, the entire building began to shake heavily as if it were about to come crashing down. People were in a panic, talking about how the place was

Janine leaned against the desk to keep her balance as the floor began to crack and things started falling down all over the place, 'What the hell?'

XxX

(Moments Ago – Team Rocket Hideout – Basement 2nd Floor)

Naruto's wall of clones gave him a chance to take Shujinken and phase through a few walls to find a better place to fight, or better yet leave. Yeah, leaving would have been way better. No reason to fight then and there. Freaky psychic chick… no thank you. He was going to fight someone like that in a damn hallway? Not a chance.

He might not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even he knew that when being stuck in your enemy's field of vision was how they could hurl you with their mind like a Frisbee you needed space to maneuver around and fight them back.

As he became tangible once more in an open main room, Naruto looked down at his Misdreavus that he was holding in his arms and gave her a kiss on the top of the head that got her to laugh, "I wish I knew we could both do that before. You and me are going to be doing that a lot now when I find places I need to break into." That was a dream scenario for a ninja. No walls to hold you back?

Speaking of no walls holding anyone back, a very startled Naruto jumped back upon the sudden appearance of Sabrina in front of him from thin air, accompanied by her Kadabra and a lame looking tall blue blob of a Pokémon with a screwed up expression on its face, flipper-like arms, and a black paddle of a tail with marks on it that looked like eyes.

That teleporting crap seemed useful too. Naruto looked at Shujinken who looked back up at him in return, "Can you learn how to do something like that?" She just shook her head in response, "Meh, I didn't think so. Man Pokémon are weird. How'd you find me damn it?" He finished in Sabrina's direction.

"I cleared the base out, so it's just you and me." Sabrina explained with a bit of a wicked smirk, "I couldn't risk you pulling one over on the idiot grunts and getting away. I don't know if you've noticed but they're not the smartest or the strongest." She had a point. Naruto had to admit that much at least. Most of the black uniformed no-names were weak, "Without the riffraff here I could lock on to your thoughts and have Kadabra Teleport to you."

So no running? Fine. He had a better spot to fight from either. The room they were in seemed like some kind of a lobby or a gathering spot for Team Rocket operatives, and that left plenty of open space.

"Ranbouen!" Naruto threw his fire puppy's Poké Ball and released him to take part in the battle as well, "Flamethrower!" Without wasting a moment, the Growlithe let loose a violent torrent of fire from his mouth and blasted Sabrina's Kadabra with the surprise attack, "Heh…" Naruto grinned viciously. Now things were starting to swing his way.

Sabrina covered her face and stood behind her Wobbuffet until the fire ceased flowing forth, "Kadabra, Recover!" Her Pokémon's injuries began to heal rapidly right before her eyes until she strangely found it ensnared by chains that seemed to come from nowhere. Further scrutiny found that the chains were actually coming from Naruto's hands, "What in the world?"

"Chakura no Kusari (Chakra Chains)! I've got one so let's get the other!" Naruto said as he retained tight control over Sabrina's Kadabra, "Shuji-chan hit the other one with a Shadow Ball!" Shujinken opened her mouth and formed a surging black ball of energy that she fired directly at the blue blob of a Pokémon that stood in front of Sabrina.

Instead of being concerned, Sabrina just ducked down behind her Pokémon and issued her own command, "Wobbuffet, use Mirror Coat." The blue Pokémon began to shimmer a white reflective color and stood strong as the Shadow Ball collided and exploded. Inexplicably, Shujinken fell to the ground with a cry as her own body showed effects of damage, even more than Sabrina's Wobbuffet, "Like that?"

"Shuji-?" Naruto's call to his ghost Pokémon ended when he suddenly felt an incredible crushing pressure that smashed him to the ground and broke his focus over his Chakra Chains, "What in the world?" He asked with great strain as he saw that Shujinken was taking even more abuse from whatever was happening to him. Ranbouen was untouched but was confused and concerned due to his whimpering over his master and his ghostly friend, "What happened?"

"Oh, Future Sight finally kicked in." Sabrina said explanatorily, "I called that in ages ago when I still had my Hypno out."

Naruto just growled and stood back up off of the ground with Ranbouen standing in front of him protectively, "You're seriously strong."

"And you're not bad. You're just a little too direct." Sabrina said before pointing at Naruto as her eyes glowed blue, "Got you." She then made a hand gesture to move him backwards but he dug in his feet and held strong against the blunt force of her psychic push, "Well look at that. Kadabra use Zap Cannon."

On the edge of the spoon in Kadabra's hand a large clear orb of crackling electricity formed and shot off in Naruto's direction. Though Sabrina couldn't drive him back, he couldn't move to dodge and the only thing that bailed him out was Ranbouen tackling him to the ground.

The move hit the wall behind them and annihilated it, completely turning it to rubble. That could have been Naruto had Ranbouen not been on the ball, "Bite…" Naruto hissed out as he started getting up again.

Eager to get some vengeance for his master's injury and the abuse inflicted upon Shujinken, Ranbouen sprinted towards Kadabra and savagely bit its arm that held its spoon. He yanked the Kadabra down to the ground and shook it around violently until he found himself lifted up telekinetically by Sabrina.

"Smack Down!"

A small chunk of broken wall was hurled through the air and hit the distracted Sabrina in the head hard enough to break her concentration on Ranbouen, freeing the Growlithe from her mental grip. Rubbing the bloody wound on her head she glared over to Naruto who had recalled Shujinken back into her Poke Ball and had brought out Sazakumoru to help fight. He definitely wasn't a quitter, and he wounded her to boot.

"Atta girl." Naruto said, rubbing the top of Sazakumoru's bone helmet, "Alright, let's win this thing. Saza-chan, Thrash! Ranbouen, give me a hand!" Naruto formed a Kage Bunshin and created a Rasengan between them while his Cubone's eyes glowed red and she rampaged at Kadabra, brutally assaulting it with her paws, tail, and club, "Come on!"

Ranbouen shot a flame at Naruto's Rasengan and sparked it ablaze. With Kadabra subdued by Sazakumoru's ongoing rampage, that only left Sabrina and her Wobbuffet that she chose to hide behind.

"_Destiny Bond__."_ Sabrina mentally ordered to her Wobbuffet. She prepared herself for an intense collision, but no matter what happened she was confident in her plan of action.

"Katon: Rasengan (Fire Release: Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto smashed his fiery Rasengan right into Wobbuffet that didn't try to dodge or back down from the attack. It was a brave Pokémon, he had to give it that.

Upon contact, Wobbuffet was engulfed in flames and sent flying back, smashing into Sabrina and knocking her away and burning her as well. Naruto felt great. He felt like he was right there to finishing the fight, all that was left was to subdue Kadabra.

And then he coughed up blood and dropped to his knees on the ground holding his stomach, 'W-What?' He thought to himself as his vision started to swim and burns started to form on his skin, "I don't…" He didn't even finish his statement before falling forward unconscious.

Sazakumoru immediately stopped her uncharacteristic rampage and ran to Naruto while Ranbouen did the same. Both tried to shake Naruto and stir him awake, but no dice. They'd never seen Naruto knocked out before or even that hurt before.

"Destiny Bond." Sabrina said as she pushed her thoroughly defeated Wobbuffet off of her singed body with a smirk despite her condition, "You can't hear me, but now you know why a Wobbuffet is a dangerous Pokémon. The most complete set of counter-techniques that any living Pokémon possesses. Even if you're tough enough to survive the counters it can still get you right back no matter what you do to it."

Hence why she used it as her personal defender throughout the battle. Even if she knew something was about to put down her Wobbuffet she could ensure that it met the same fate if it went to that sort of a length.

Naruto looked to be in bad condition. And things didn't seem to be looking up as Kadabra despite taking one hell of a beating survived Sazakumoru's Thrash attack and stood healing itself back at Sabrina's side as she started getting up as well.

She scoffed at Naruto's Pokémon and lifted them off of the ground with her own psychic abilities before tossing them away from Naruto cruelly. Kadabra was still healing its very severe wounds dealt to it by the runt's Cubone so she had to do it herself.

That wouldn't keep them down for long though, they hadn't been harmed any before that particular moment, but she would only need one moment with Naruto, "Let's see what makes you tick shall we?" She said as she kneeled down and held his head in her hands before both of their eyes glowed blue.

XxX

(Naruto's Mindscape)

"Ugh." Sabrina found herself wading through ankle-deep water in what seemed to be a sewer, "I've heard of a mind in the gutter, but this is absurd." She said to herself as she walked through the tangible representation of Naruto's mind.

A turn down the only hallway that she could find for her entire line of sight led her to something of a boiler room at the end of it. A very large boiler room with pipes on the walls and a large cage with nothing but darkness behind it and a large slip of paper on the front of it with the kanji for 'seal' on it.

Now that was interesting. A first as far as she had seen, but locks and bars meant secrets and that was exactly why she had connected their minds to begin with.

But first she had to dodge the series of Narutos coming at her from behind with Rasengans in their hands. Sabrina pushed herself sharply away from Naruto and his dozen copies before they struck her and she wound up banging her back against the bars of the cage.

Naruto and his mental clones then froze in place when he saw Sabrina's hand reach up and grab onto the seal on the bars of the cage, "You don't want to do that." Naruto said, stopping in his tracks.

"Oh?" Sabrina said, realizing that she had him by the grapefruits, "And just what's behind it? That's what I really want to know?"

"Something that'll kill us all if you pull that off." Naruto answered carefully, "Seriously. Don't do that." His first question would have been what the hell she was doing in his mind, but it was clear that the reason was nothing good, "I'm the only thing holding that guy in there back from destroying all kinds of stuff."

There was a disbelieving look on Sabrina's face until she momentarily turned to look into the cage and saw a red-eyed silhouette of a massive fox and its teeth in the dark, "That is… the largest Ninetailes…" That damn thing didn't seem real.

This kid was holding it inside of him? She didn't understand the logistics of how that worked exactly, but she knew for certain that if it was real and he were telling the truth because at that point he was completely unable to lie to her…

…Team Rocket had to have it.

Without saying another word, she pulled at the seal until a hand grabbed onto hers and kept her from ripping it off. When did Naruto get a clone to grab her? She had eyes on him the entire time, and his clones didn't matter because she was already in his mind and they had no real independence at that point.

Well it wasn't a clone, and from the look on Naruto's face he knew who it was. It looked like he had seen a ghost too from the looks of things. It was a tall blonde man with longer spiky blonde hair than Narutos that wore a long white coat with orange flames on the bottom. He looked just like Naruto only far calmer.

Naruto's clones just vanished like specters since his priorities had officially changed, "You're the-. You're the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato."

Minato actually spared Naruto a pretty big smile before focusing at a very stunned Sabrina that couldn't understand why this random mental defense was able to overcome her mental strength. That shouldn't have been possible, but first Naruto was able to fight it and this Minato person stopped her altogether. How was there another person in Naruto's head at all?

"You really shouldn't do that." Minato said to Sabrina as his paralyzing grip on her wrist tightened, "You don't have the slightest clue of what you're about to do. Don't mess with things you don't understand first."

"**You…"** The Kyuubi growled lowly from within the cage. That ignorant girl had been just a second away from freeing him, **"Why can't you just die like a normal person?"**

"Who are you?" Sabrina asked, trying to outwardly appear as calm as possible as she felt her place within Naruto's mind slipping inexplicably, 'I don't understand! What's going on?'

Minato gestured at Naruto with his free hand as the boy still stood dumbfounded, "Me? I'm that kid's dad." Naruto's jaw officially fell as if he couldn't hold it shut any longer, "…Dead dad, but dad nonetheless. I'm also the one that put the being in the cage behind you. Sorry about that by the way Naruto."

"…It's all good." Naruto muttered weakly. He was still coming to terms with what had just been sprung on him, "…Dad." Oh, he was going to love that one.

Another grin was sent Naruto's way from Minato before he looked back at Sabrina, "And you shouldn't be here. Don't ever try this again please." He said before Sabrina instantly disappeared out of Naruto's head, "Hey son." He beamed toward Naruto before exhaling harshly with Naruto's fist in his stomach.

"That's for _that guy_!" Naruto shouted, pointing at the Kyuubi behind its bars, "But the Yondaime Hokage being my old man is so awesome! Why the hell didn't anyone tell me?"

"Hell if I know." Minato said, letting out a cough as he was otherwise fine with getting punched, "I've seen your whole life Naruto. You're one tough kid." Naruto looked bashful at the compliment from his personal hero, "I also see that you're stuck over here like I was." He smiled at his young son wryly as if he were sharing an inside joke, "…Welcome to the madhouse. I see you're acquainted. Mind if we talk for a bit?"

Did he have a choice? It wasn't like he'd put himself to sleep. His body'd been screwed up by attacking Sabrina's weird Wobbuffet.

XxX

(Back in the Real World)

Sabrina let out a gasp and found her body hurled away from Naruto's, sending her crashing through a partition that separated the main part of the floor from a sitting area. As she started getting up she could still see her Kadabra healing and that Naruto's two Pokémon had managed to get up from her attack to reach his side again.

So she had only melded minds with him for a moment. But what kind of weird psyche did that kid have? It didn't matter in the end. It was time to take him with her to her Boss. He'd definitely want to poke and prod at Naruto to figure out just what was inside of him. It was too good to pass up.

Both Ranbouen and Sazakumoru were still trying to wake him up when they found Sabrina back on her feet and her Kadabra almost fully healed and ready to fight again joining her. And to make things worse Sabrina was preparing to use at least one other Pokémon to defeat them both.

Fighting without a trainer against someone so strong already put them at a disadvantage, but fighting while trying to make sure that Naruto was alive and safe was something else altogether.

If Ranbouen learned anything from Naruto he learned that there was always a time to run away, case in point when they ran from a whole horde of Beedrill in the Viridian Forest. But he was definitely not leaving Naruto there. No way in hell. He buried his snout underneath Naruto's body and picked Naruto up over his back while Sazakumoru was tearfully throwing a fit with her bone.

"You're a Growlithe, so you're not going to just leave your trainer behind." Sabrina said, already knowing what Ranbouen's course of action was going to be, "Too bad for you, but I don't have any issues with killing you to make sure I get what I need out of this. Kadabra, Psychic."

Kadabra's eyes began to glow blue and a strong blue outline surrounded Ranbouen's body, taking control of him while a scared Sazakumoru began to cry louder and slam her bone on the ground harder and harder, eventually hard enough to let loose powerful shockwaves that began rattling the entire facility.

It felt as if she were ripping the place apart, and Kadabra released Ranbouen from his intended attack in the face of Sazakumoru's own. With an angry sneer on her face as portions of ceiling began to come down, she grabbed onto Kadabra and teleported away before she wound up buried underground in the base. She'd have to fight again to get to Naruto and there wasn't any time for that.

Ranbouen began looking around rapidly as he knew what awaited them as well and Skull Bashed into a far wall to expose the earth underneath it where he began to dig frantically as if their lives depended on it, because they did.

XxX

(Rocket Game Corner – Main Gaming Floor)

'What the hell?' Janine thought to herself, leaning against a service desk as it felt like the entire building was being shaken to its very foundations. Unless a fault line had formed underneath Celadon City since the last time she had been there it was a Pokémon using an attack.

The floor of the casino bulged upward and split open to reveal a Growlithe with Naruto on his back, with a Cubone trailing them out of the hole.

What in the world had happened to them? Naruto looked terrible like he had been burned.

"This is not good." Janine muttered, taking Naruto off of Ranbouen's back to walk him outside. Luckily Erika and a few of her attendants had made it to the scene and were already outside and coordinating efforts to run damage control on what was inside, "Why didn't you ever pull this sooner?" She asked once she found the Gym Leader.

"It was a legitimate business front, and it was filled with Team Rocket members until it was noted that they had cleared out." Erika replied coolly as a pair of her male underlings took Naruto from Janine in order to treat him, "What happened to him?"

Shaking her head, Janine kneeled down and rubbed a whining Ranbouen's head as he and Sazakumoru watched Naruto be attended to in the field outside, "A fight I'd guess. But those injuries look like something that one of his own attacks would inflict." Burns and from the blood at his lips coupled with how tender his body was she assumed it was his flaming Rasengan, "It's not the kind of thing that you can hurt yourself with accidentally either so I don't know."

Upon opening his orange top up to check his torso over, the burns and the bruise in the middle of his chest looked horrid, "How much is his life in danger?" She asked. These were rather severe wounds.

Janine held a hand on Naruto's neck to check his pulse and another under his nose to check his breathing, "He'll be fine. I know he looks bad, but if he's still breathing he's not going to stop. He's already getting better, we just need to find him a doctor. Trust me." She said, much to the relief of Sazakumoru.

If what Jiraiya had left for her instruction-wise in case Naruto was ever badly injured was to be believed he would be fine if his heart hadn't stopped, he hadn't been decapitated or otherwise bifurcated, and he was still breathing. Anything else other than things that would kill him and it would patch itself up with enough time given to do so. She'd seen a bit of it when after fighting Lt. Surge he'd been as right as rain the next day.

Hospitals still helped though.

Janine just opened his hand and placed a Fire Stone in it before closing it again, a present that she was going to give him as a real apology for their fight outside of Lavender Town, "I'm sorry babyface… but you'll be fine." Despite being unconscious with quite painful looking wounds, there seemed to be a smile on Naruto's face as if he were stuck in a good dream.

XxX

(Some Time Later – With Jiraiya – Sea Route 20)

A rather grave look sat on Jiraiya's face as he stood at the front of the merchant ship that he had been employing the services of to ferry him around the seas of Kanto. He was always good on paying, so they were glad to take him where he needed to go. He was always so fast that it never interfered with their trading either.

"Are you alright Jiraiya-san?" One of the deckhands asked, bundled up in winter clothing. It was getting colder outside due to where they were venturing, but Jiraiya simply remained in the same clothes he always wore, "Do you want to borrow a coat or something?"

Turning around to the respectful young man, Jiraiya just gave him a grin and pointed to himself, "A true sage fears not the elements. Nay, he embraces all natural weather conditions. To one truly in touch with nature this is merely the equivalent of a brisk autumn day. I'm fine." He said as his own breath took form in the air. It really was getting cold out there.

The deckhand nodded, knowing that Jiraiya was infamously powerful in their homeland of the Elemental Nations. If the man said he was fine, he was fine, "Well we're coming up on the Seafoam Islands."

Jiraiya turned back toward the front of the ship where on the far horizon he could see two twin islands not too far from each other in the water. That was his destination. If he was looking for whatever exceedingly powerful Pokémon existed in this land that blocked time-space ninjutsu from reaching outside of it this was the easiest place to start from.

According to Professor Oak, one very special type of Pokémon could be seen in this location. But only deep, deep, deep inside of the subzero temperatures of the farthest depths of the islands.

Not very fun, but necessary as an adventurer. He'd have taken Naruto along, but the problem with summoning was more of his problem than Naruto's. Let Naruto pilot his own course and do his own thing for a bit. From what he had done with the Rasengan and the Chakra Chains he was rising to the occasion.

Kami, even from as far away from the islands as they were snow was starting to fall. Was it really going to be that cold on the island? If a species of Pokémon was doing that simply from its presence, it had to be absurdly strong.

XxX

(Seafoam Islands)

Tightly bundled Team Rocket members scrambled to get heating equipment and electric generators off of the ships onto the frigid grounds and and into the caves that lead underground to the depths of the islands to locate their target Pokémon.

Overseeing the operation was the ninja of the Team Rocket Elite Triad. Dressed in his black ninja outfit and his dark red scarf around his neck, the strong eyes of Koga watched everything being set up.

Surge had managed to capture Zapdos… although the amount of Team Rocket grunts that were injured or killed to complete the mission was high. That was the good news from lately.

Not too long ago he had gotten word from their Boss that the base in Celadon City had been destroyed and the Rocket Game Corner had been wrecked. That was a damn shame, that was a great front for amassing money and smuggling Pokémon.

Brats were just meddling around in Team Rocket's plans all over. Those boys Red and Blue in Lavender Town, that Green girl that stole information on legendary Pokémon from them, and his own daughter that had defeated Lt. Surge along with the blonde boy Naruto.

He didn't like that boy. He looked too much like someone else he had a less than pleasant run-in with in the past over fifteen years ago.

There was some solace taken in Sabrina's report in how she had fooled him into attacking a Wobbuffet all out, but the fact that she didn't confirm his death erased that for him. You had to make completely certain that a ninja was down and out. Doing otherwise was foolish, even if an entire base was coming down around them.

It didn't matter. He had a mission given to him by his Boss, and it took precedence over his distaste for his estranged daughter's choice of travelling companions and his dislike of skilled children.

Underneath the Seafoam Islands roosted the legendary ice bird Articuno. And it was to be Team Rocket's come hell or high water.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 10: Pallet Town<span>

Still not enough money to buy enough supplies for a return trip to the Elemental Nations.

They weren't charging enough money to earn it any faster, but Minato and many of the other Konoha ninja refused to highball the people that needed their help. They charged fairly for their services as shinobi and were actually in demand all over Kanto. Word of them had even spread to another region called Johto. Minato had no plans on venturing there as he had no reason to, but that was still pretty cool.

So once again he sat at his temporary base of operations afforded to him by the ever-gracious Samuel Oak, the laboratory of the Pokémon professor himself.

"That storm we ran into really screwed us over." Minato said to himself as he went over how much it would take to finish stocking the ship back up, "…Knocking us so far off-course we ended up in a new place altogether?"

At the moment, Oak was out in his vast property checking on the numerous Pokémon under his care. The man could take care of himself and even then he had enlisted the help of three of the Konoha ninja to help him just in case. For pay of course.

'We need supplies to last us at least two months.' Minato thought to himself as they had only obtained half of what they needed. At the moment there were men out buying and transporting goods from nearby Viridian City, not perishables, but some of the other necessities that they would need on the trip back. Things they could afford to gather in advance while they had the resources to do so, 'I'm not looking forward to getting back on those tubs though.'

The door of the laboratory was thrown open from downstairs and Minato heard rapid footsteps before he found Genma had run all the way into the building and upstairs with a red face that showed he had run quite some distance, "Hah… a little bit of trouble Minato-senpai."

Trouble? Minato turned around in his chair and stood up before guiding Genma to have a seat, "Calm down, take a few breaths. What's the problem?" He asked, giving his teenage underling time to gather himself before speaking.

Genma cherished that time to rest for a bit before speaking up, "The supply trucks that we were taking to bring our stuff back from Viridian City… they were attacked. Attacked by ninja."

Minato narrowed his eyes. No way Iwagakure was here too. So what other group of shinobi could he be talking about? It didn't make sense, "From where?"

"They claim Fuchsia City Gym as their place of origin." Genma explained, "They say we're taking their reputation from them."

Great, so Konoha could make enemies even in a place where no one rightfully knew who they were. Maybe the Will of Fire had a curse with it as well? That would explain why everyone always had a bone to pick with them.

But speculation could wait until later. Business time was now, "Any casualties?"

"No. We had a short battle. A truck got ruined, some people got beaten up… mostly them, but no. They just retreated. Everyone's fine." And there Genma thought that a damn day trip to Viridian City would be an easy mission. He should have known better, "Wh-Where are you going?" He asked when he saw Minato grab his flak jacket and put it on as he walked down the stairs on the way outside.

"Fuchsia City." Minato said, "I'm going to settle this up as soon as I can. There doesn't have to be any fighting like this." It most certainly wasn't to the Konoha visitors' advantage for another war of sorts to go down even if it was on a smaller scale than the one they had in their homeland.

"I'll come with you." They had never wandered to that place in their travels for missions. Now it was clear why; because they already had ninja to handle things they needed them for, "You don't even have any markers in that city yet."

"No… I think if I go alone it'll be a less tense situation." Minato said opening the door to leave the laboratory, "I'll find the way. Don't worry." Before Genma could say anything else, Minato vanished in a flash of yellow.

For such a levelheaded leader, Minato sure did some bullheaded things from time to time.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Growlithe): Male   
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire).

Hogohei (Cloyster): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal), Spike Cannon (Normal).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting), Revenge (Fighting).

Sazakumoru (Cubone): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock), Swords Dance (Normal), Thrash (Normal), Earthquake (Ground).

Shujinken (Misdreavus): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Growl (Normal), Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Double Team (Normal), Shadow Ball (Ghost).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug), Flash (Normal).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Golbat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying), Wing Attack (Flying), Aerial Ace (Flying), Double Team (Normal).

Venonat: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal).

Pineco: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Protect (Normal), Selfdestruct (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Take Down (Normal), Gyro Ball (Steel), Bide (Normal).

Sabrina's Current Pokémon Team

Hypno: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Hypnosis (Psychic), Headbutt (Normal), Secret Power (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Synchronoise (Psychic), Zen Headbutt (Psychic), Future Sight (Psychic), Dream Eater (Psychic).

Wobbuffet: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Counter (Fighting), Mirror Coat (Psychic), Safeguard (Normal), Destiny Bond (Ghost).

Kadabra: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Teleport (Psychic), Psybeam (Psychic), Façade (Normal), Shock Wave (Electric), Fire Punch (Fire), Agility (Psychic), Recover (Normal), Zap Cannon (Electric), Psychic (Psychic).

* * *

><p><strong>I'm tired… going to go take a nap now and rest these weary bones of mine before I spend my weekend off working on some other stories.<strong>

**Later folks. Kenchi out.**


	12. Shadows of Kanto

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. I just recently stopped and took note of just how many words I've written in all considering everything I've chosen to write and I wondered how many pages that would fill if I were to put it all down somewhere. Geez.

Oh well. It's kind of you guys' faults too so feel free to take some responsibility as to why my laptop keyboard is worn the fuck out. I can't even read the print on most of the vowels anymore.

Also feel free to pool your resources and buy me a new one. Don't be shy now.

**Chapter 12: Shadows of Kanto**

* * *

><p>The Seafoam Islands were absolutely frigid. It made absolutely no sense because the island didn't rest in an arctic climate. The rest of the area around them happened to be in a tropical kind of place. If you went twenty miles out from the islands it would get warmer again, at an alarmingly quick rate.<p>

It was supposed to be an island uninhabited by humans as well, but that wasn't what Jiraiya found when he had arrived. There were people stationed all over the place, and they weren't friendly. He actually wound up approaching some. A lesser number than he had seen elsewhere to make things easier for himself just in case they weren't friendly.

They hadn't been.

"Let that teach you all a lesson in manners." Jiraiya said, cracking his knuckles and walking away from a scene where he had lain waste to more than a dozen people dressed in black uniforms and their Pokémon that they had tried to fight him with, "When someone asks you a question politely with a smile on their face just answer it."

Really, they had brought it upon themselves. He didn't want to fight.

They had been transporting more equipment toward the mouth of a cave, and if anything it was even colder inside of it than it was outside. It actually started bothering Jiraiya to go down further inside. But further inside he traversed. He found lights strung up on the walls on the way further inside and power generators on the ground deeper inside as well, along with places set with large space heaters.

'What are those people outside here for?' Jiraiya questioned inside of his own head, 'Could it be that they're here for the same reason as me?' No, probably not. It was probably for a more aggressive reason than him. There were too many folks in uniform and this was a lot of equipment for it to be anything other than a fully organized effort.

There had even been a large machine that had apparently been used to drill a hole in the floor due to the massive crevice that sat right next to it, ropes safely attached to anchors up top and leading down it to an open cavern along with many large power wires.

Underneath though, the temperature had to have dropped ten more degrees from what it had been up above, and the icy running water had a current that didn't look too inviting for whatever found itself caught up inside of it. Whatever did would find itself dashed to death against jagged rocks weathered by the temperature and the unforgiving waters.

A weakened caw of a mighty bird caught Jiraiya's notice and he traversed along the ceiling to avoid having to water-walk to reach the noise.

On a large platform of solid land a fight had seemingly taken place. The most alarming thing to Jiraiya that stood out was the large amount of black uniformed people with Rs on their chests. The alarming thing was just how many of them had been frozen solid en masse, by thick ice covering their bodies. Copious amounts of Pokémon shared the same fate as well. Anyone that survived such a thing would suffer injuries from it without a medic-nin that could heal the frostbite quickly, and those that skilled were rare even back in the Elemental Nations.

In other words their prognosis looked grim, even if he had been inclined to free them. But he hadn't been. Thus far the group hadn't endeared themselves to him so he strongly doubted he'd assisting them in any manner to behoove him.

But where many were frozen, most seemingly to the extent of death or severe disability upon their thawing, things didn't seem as grim as it appeared had that been all that anyone had been looking at. There was absolutely no ice on the entire vicinity of the battlefield of land. It had been melted away, something amazing because in places where the ice still existed it was _thick_.

Around the edges of the battlefield, industrial-sized heaters were running full blast and heating their environment. In addition to that, there were fire Pokémon of all types shooting powerful fire attacks into the air and at the target of their aggression, a bird-shaped target that was doused in fire from the oppressive number of attackers coming after it.

The bird was not done yet though despite its dire straits, and in an icy flourish it snuffed out the flames surrounding its body in a frigid cyclone created by flapping its wings.

The force of the wind blew back many of the smaller fire Pokémon that were unable to hold their ground and even more than its fair share of people. But throughout it one man stood ramrod straight with his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a long red scarf around his neck and a black ninja outfit with metal grieves covering his knees and shins, the old kind that existed back in the era where Jiraiya was a kid in the Elemental Nations, back when the ninja arts were more for constant war and less casual.

As a form of climate control his body was insulated by a live Grimer that covered him like an active battle suit. While the wind continued to blow, the man held up one of his hands and gazed at it, smirking as frost began to cover the outside of it, "You're getting weaker Articuno. Something like this should have had me keeping my distance but I guess even you have your limits after all. You know the plan, finish it off."

Everyone kept their distance as much as possible from Articuno and the remaining Team Rocket members that were a part of this plan of action threw multiple Poke Balls in the direction of Articuno, releasing many Pokémon right in its vicinity. There was not a moment wasted in this action either.

"Electrode, Selfdestruct!"

"Graveler, Explosion!"

Multiple calls of this sort went out to many different sturdy-looking creatures and obediently these Pokémon all gathered energy into their bodies to a visible extent before quickly releasing it with catastrophic force.

The entire cavern was rocked by the force of ten explosive detonations. The ice drippings on the ceiling were shaken into breaking off and Jiraiya had to play a game of dashing from piece to falling piece before he landed safely on the sanctuary of the ground that had been the site of the blasts, "What kind of battle technique was that? To sacrifice all of those Pokémon?"

As he walked along the pulverized ground, Jiraiya bore witness to what was left of landmass underneath the island. The Pokémon that had been used to devastate the area were gravely injured at a minimum from the coordinated suicidal effort.

Chunks of Graveler were shattered from its main body, making it look emaciated. Pieces of the shell of a Golem had been blown away from its body underneath. The Electrode looked to be the best off from the devastation. They were alive, but hurt badly.

A necessary sacrifice some would venture to say. And if they did then he'd break their jaw.

It was smoky, and some of the Team Rocket members that hadn't managed to get away far enough in time were strewn about as well, knocked unconscious from the blasts or moaning in agony at their current situation.

The ones that were unscathed due to their quick thinking and ability to get away from the final brutal explosion that they had facilitated were standing by the ninja that seemed to be their leader. He stood a safe distance away from the heavily injured bird that they had been fighting.

It was a magnificent creature, standing the full size of a tall man with aqua blue feathers, a grand three-pronged head crest, a small grey beak and grey legs, massive wings that seemed to radiate pure cold air just by existing, and a long shimmering blue streamer-like tail that shined like ice.

"An Articuno…" One of the Team Rocket members said, "We actually brought it down Master Koga." Sure it took hours and hours of conflict and like fifty of them died or were horribly injured in the process, but it was docile now due to the glowing orange collar around its neck.

"Indeed we did." Koga said, walking closer to the Pokémon while everyone else stayed away. Articuno glared at him hatefully, but kept calm even as the smirking man put a hand right on its chest. Koga's underlings gasped as they expected his hand to freeze over from prolonged contact, but no such thing happened, "And it knows that any attempt to try and fight back, and it'll find itself in quite a bit of pain." His hand touched the collar around Articuno's neck for emphasis.

Jiraiya approached closer to get a better look, "So this entire operation was just to catch one Pokémon." He stated, getting the attention of everyone there, "I can see why. I mean, even with all of these people most of you still got your asses kicked."

Koga's eyes scrutinized Jiraiya closely and suspiciously as he stood in front of Articuno and faced him, his Team Rocket grunts standing in a line in front of him ready to fight, "And just who are you? I wonder how you managed to get inside of here with all of the men stationed outside."

A grin spread across Jiraiya's face as he loudly began to introduce himself, "Slipping past part-time sentries and traversing frigid conditions just to get to the bottom of the freakiest things the world has to offer is nothing for an even freakier toad sage! My fiery passion can melt even the most frozen of cores! Ladies on the beaches the world over leave their pathetic scrawny boytoys in the wet sand when they catch a mere glimpse of the Adonis-like frame of the mightiest ninja in the lands! Jiraiya-sama!"

And indeed the ladies of the Team Rocket grunts blushed at the outright blusterous confidence of Jiraiya and his incredible pose. If Naruto had been there he would have smacked the kid one on the head and told him to pay attention so he could learn how to pull himself some women in the future.

Koga scowled at Jiraiya and took no amusement in his presence. That merely meant that the operatives above ground weren't up to snuff if they couldn't keep out one man, whether he snuck past them or not. Focusing in on Articuno was no excuse to allow a stranger to get this close, "Kill him."

The majority of them pulled out whips and summoned forth more Pokémon from their Poke Balls. Rhyhorns, A Tauros, several Murkrows, and a few Houndooms. Meanwhile Koga, his body now clear of his Grimer armor, mounted the back of Articuno against its will with a smirk on his face.

Jiraiya just scratched his long, spiky hair and pulled out a single Poke Ball, "Well since I can't summon… and everybody else seems to be doing it. So go on ahead and meet my lovely lady!" From his Poke Ball sprang a humanoid Pokémon with a black face, black hands, and white arms that wore a long red gown and had long blonde hair with prominent pink lips.

He had managed to capture a Jynx while on the Seafoam Islands with his bare hands.

"Avalanche!"

Jiraiya's Jynx slammed its hands onto the ground and from the ceiling above fell a ton of icy spikes that had been naturally created by the climate. The slower Pokémon were hit and some of the Team Rocket members were injured along with them, while Jiraiya went weaving through the dangerous falling ice and made it a point to knock out and subdue every enemy within arm's reach of him.

Hey, if he could watch his runt of an apprentice learn how to battle using Pokémon it was only reasonable to figure he could too. Aside from that Professor Oak's notes and Minato's reports helped immensely on that front as well.

'Those moves…' Koga thought to himself as he kept his eyes on Jiraiya, something normal people would have a difficult time registering and making sense of. Most humans didn't move so quickly, 'I've seen them before.'

He said he was a ninja. The method that he used to run wasn't the style of speed technique taught in his discipline of ninjutsu. As he watched Jiraiya deliver a bone-shattering combination of taijutsu to a hapless foe he had a flashback to around fifteen years ago; to someone that had shown up, made his name and then disappeared into thin air just as soon as he had appeared.

The thing that sealed it was when Jiraiya moved to protect his new Pokémon Jynx from a rampaging Tauros intent on running her down, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" The blue orb of energy in his hand was unmistakable, as were its effects.

The Rasengan plowed into the side of the Tauros before it could attack Jynx and sent it flying off of the piece of land they were fighting on and into the water that surrounded them in the cavern underneath the Seafoam Islands. Returning the favor while Jiraiya had his back turned, his Jynx delivered a punch with an aura of ice surrounding her fist to one of their enemies.

No, he wasn't going to fight this man. Not here. Not when the mission was more important. He had a desire to destroy him, but not at risk to his mission, "Konoha ninja…" Koga seethed under his breath, "Die! Blizzard!"

Articuno at first resentfully resisted, but the pain from the collar that had been placed on it to demand its obedience tormented it until it took off and started flapping its wings with enough power to generate torrential winds with frigid air and searing ice behind it.

He cared nothing for the Team Rocket members in the way, nor their Pokémon. The mission only said to ensure the capture of Articuno.

Jiraiya grit his teeth angrily and pulled his Jynx close to him as he extended his hair and forced it to surround his body, all the while the snow and ice piled onto him until it covered him completely.

This was more than ample for Koga who smirked and commanded Articuno to use its special exit point to leave the underground of the islands. He had procured what he had come for. The Konoha ninja could just freeze to death.

Before he made his escape he bid one last look back at Jiraiya's frozen frame only to see it explode into thousands of chunks and sharpened hair follicles shoot in every direction like spikes. Jiraiya didn't look any worse for wear due to the insulation of his hair defense, nor did his Jynx due to its elemental nature and Jiraiya's intervention.

With an angry grunt he continued to make his retreat, 'Just as infuriating as Namikaze!' He thought to himself as he flew away.

Underneath, Jiraiya just looked around at the new wintery digs that Articuno had left him with, his breath fully visible in front of his face. That was enough freezing his ass off. He was headed back up top. Koga might have gotten away with Articuno and flown off to who knows where, but now it was time for Jiraiya to learn some things about Team Rocket. And there were a whole bunch of subjects for interrogation up above that he could use.

Articuno was clearly _extremely_ powerful if its mere presence could turn what should have been a tropical island into a frigid waste, and while it wasn't the Pokémon that he had been looking for Jiraiya and his respect for nature had a serious problem with human beings trying to enslave forces of nature that shouldn't be caged.

Aside from that, Koga and Team Rocket had really pissed him off.

XxX

(Some Time Later – With Naruto – Unknown Location)

Naruto opened his eyes to find himself in a completely unknown location. His body was still very stiff and sore and he found that his burns were healed so it must have been at least 24 hours since his flaming Rasengan backfired on him.

Damn Wobbuffet was dangerous.

Holding a hand on his belly, Naruto sat up slowly so as not to harm himself further. Injured or not he needed to figure out where the hell he was. He slowly set his feet on the ground to walk to the nearest window and look outside at the trees around the building. Was that a wall surrounding the place? Like a mansion wall?

"Where the hell am I?" Naruto said to himself as he scratched his head. Looking at his person he found himself dressed in a white kimono with bandages underneath to help him stay patched up, so someone had treated him rather well. The floors were a well-kept kind of wood and the walls were the kind that would be in a traditional castle.

He turned around when the door slid open behind him and he found a young woman with red lipstick and long dark green hair in a ponytail down her back entering the room calmly while carrying a tray with bandages and ointments on it.

"You're awake." This woman wore clothing similar to what Janine wore only in red and made for an adult clearly, so she had to be a ninja as well, "You arrived here four days ago. Your body was healing exceptionally considering what happened to you, but you didn't wake up. Then again, battling a psychic must have taken quite the toll on your consciousness. They can be a very dangerous and troublesome enemy, not even counting that you fought possibly the strongest one."

Naruto just chuckled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck without answering, 'Heh, either that or time flew in my head hanging out with dad after he kicked Sabrina out of my mind.' Holy shit, his dad was the Yondaime Hokage. That was the coolest thing ever, "Yeah, thanks for helping me out. I appreciate it, but where am I?"

"A safe location." The older kunoichi set down the tray with the medical supplies on the bed that Naruto had just gotten out of and moved back toward the door she had entered through, "Now that you're awake I'm certain that you don't want me dressing your injuries any longer. It could be quite an awkward situation in some places were I to do it." She finished with a smirk, eyes shooting down below Naruto's torso.

All Naruto did was nod slowly with a reddening face as he was left alone in the room after the lady shut the door to tend to himself as suggested. So that meant that the entire time he was out of it-. Alright he was going to ignore the prospect of the stranger ninja lady seeing his more sensitive parts in exchange for just feeling grateful.

"There are changes of clothes for you in the dresser. Your equipment is with Janine and your Pokémon are okay, she's been training them along with her own in the meantime. You're free to go and find her when you're ready."

Well thank goodness for that.

But where the hell was he!

XxX

"Alright." Naruto said, dressed in fresh white clothing similar to what he woke up in. He pat himself down to feel how solid the bandages were underneath his clothes, "Heh, I'm not a medic-nin, but I can fix myself up well enough I think." As he walked along the floor in the hallway he felt it give underneath his weight and jumped back before a Voltorb dropped from the ceiling, "What the hell?"

It didn't seem to be very happy as it glared at him and coursed electricity. That was okay with Naruto. All he had to do was be as unassuming as possible and everything would be cool as long as it didn't get agitated enough to blow up.

Just go around it. There was another direction in the hall that he could have taken entirely and thus he did so. That was disrupted when he walked straight into what seemed to be an invisible wall.

He felt like a mime as he felt it out and maneuvered his way around it. Pressure plate traps and sleight-of-hand illusions? How was a guy supposed to rest and recover in a place like that?

It was like he was a mouse in a maze but he managed to get himself out soon enough and make it outside to a grassy corner of the mansion where he found himself quickly tackled to the ground and his face assaulted by the tongue of his ecstatic Growlithe, "Ranbouen, come on!" Naruto shouted at him through his laughing as he eased the fire puppy off of himself and rubbed the top of his head, "Good to see you're alright boy."

Looking further around the outdoors corner, he saw Fukigenko training with Hogohei near a pond by shifting between launching jump kicks at his ridiculously sturdy shell and dodging his retaliatory Tackle attacks. Bone always in hand, Sazakumoru was peacefully asleep underneath a tree with Shujinken resting right next to her in the shade.

A relieved sigh came from Naruto as he continued to sit on the ground and rub his first Pokémon's furry head. That meant that everyone was accounted for. Well everyone when it came to his Pokémon at least. There was still one person that he hadn't seen yet.

But the mystery of her whereabouts didn't last too much longer as Janine would walk out of the door to the mansion that Naruto had just traversed and sat down next to him and Ranbouen on the wooden floor overlooking the corner area, "Hey. You're looking much better." She said as she looked out into the yard at Naruto's Pokémon, "Your sensei said you were tough but jeez. Aya-obasan said your insides were all messed up. You should be in a wheelchair for another week at least."

Screw that. Four days was long enough, and that was only because he didn't have any sort of track of time in his head during the time he had with his dad. Perhaps it had been like that because he'd just suffered some serious physical trauma, "Nah, no way. I'm good to go right now." Naruto said with a big grin before Ranbouen lowered his head and drove his head right into Naruto's side, "Gah!"

"Good boy." Janine said in a bright baby voice, petting Ranbouen on the head. Way for the puppy to call Naruto out for trying to be macho and cool. They apparently agreed that being cool stops when you're bed-ridden for most of a week, "It looks like you didn't pick up all of your master's hardheaded traits did you?"

'Traitor…' Naruto thought of his loyal first Pokémon as he just let Janine lavish him with affection for borderline Naruto-abuse. He thought that they were tight, "Hey, by the way, where the hell are we?" It sure didn't look like they were anywhere near Celadon City, the last place he had been awake in.

Janine stopped playing with Ranbouen who had been playfully biting down on one of her grieves to address Naruto's question, "Oh, that's easy. This is my home. I live here." She stated casually as if she were discussing the weather. Nevermind the look of pure shock on Naruto's face.

She was from this place? Why in the hell was she running around and stealing crap when they met if this was the kind of place she called home? That seemed extremely unnecessary from his point of view. Her home was a damn mansion.

A bit of discomfort grew on Janine's side when she noticed Naruto giving her a straightforward and dull look without blinking and shirked back a bit until he finally opened his mouth, "…You're rich? You were rich already?"

"I wouldn't say rich." Replied Janine sheepishly as Naruto gestured around to the huge place as if to disprove that exact claim, "Look, this place is big, but it's not just somewhere for me and my family to live. Most of this place is dedicated to training. You see, this is a Pokémon Gym."

Whoa. This awesome place was a Pokémon Gym? He could have figured that it was for training, ninja training with all of the traps and mechanisms to deter advancement throughout the building, but he didn't see the Pokémon Gym thing coming.

However at that point after hearing that this was a Gym and that Janine lived here, Naruto's brain slowly started chugging and stitching together pieces of her words and actions from the past. She knew the vast majority of Gym Leaders that they had come across on a somewhat personal level. She was always exceedingly cryptic when it came to just how she knew so much about Gyms. She was always exceptionally confident of her chances of victory when fighting anyone that wasn't supposedly well-known no matter what.

"You're a Gym Leader!" Naruto shouted near the top of his lungs with an accusing finger being pointed her way. It actually got the attention of his busy Pokémon, stirring them from training or waking them up from their naps as they finally noticed he was awake and rushed over to greet him in one big mass greeting.

Sazakumoru latched onto him in a hug while Shujinken floated around him rapidly while brightly chattering. The other greetings weren't as nice as Hogohei almost smashed Naruto with his shell while trying to show him he was glad that the boy was alright, and Fukigenko had to stop himself short of trying to kick his trainer to instigate a spar.

It was lucky that Janine had all of their Poke Balls on her and gave them to Naruto to return them for a rest, "I'm not a Gym Leader." She told him as he finished giving his happy hellos to his Pokémon and returning them to their balls, "I'm the Gym Leader's daughter. My father is the real Gym Leader of the Fuchsia City Pokémon Gym."

Her father? The one that was in Team Rocket that she wanted to bring back home? That meant that this was the home that she had been talking about. That meant that Naruto had spent four or five days in the home of someone that probably wanted to kill him.

He found it quite difficult to block the shiver that went down his spine at that thought, but did so regardless, "Why didn't you tell me you lived at a Pokémon Gym before now?"

As they continued to talk, Janine led him through the mansion once more. Naruto made certain to follow in her exact steps to keep from running into traps, something that put a smirk on her face. Good idea because even if he tried to memorize where they were the traps were reset and replaced every day. There was no definite path to take.

"I didn't want to come home anytime soon, remember?" She explained as they walked through the halls of one of the mansion buildings, "But you got hurt in Celadon and I couldn't wait for you to heal up anywhere that wasn't safe."

And that place hadn't been Celadon City.

As the most influential figure in Celadon, Erika had to run some serious damage control in town after the collapse of the Rocket Game Corner. That was as good an opportunity as any to go forth and defeat any Team Rocket members found in the city that had evacuated the base underneath the casino. She couldn't adequately split her time between dealing with that and protecting an invalid Naruto for her friend. She had her own responsibilities.

"And your dad never comes back here?" Naruto asked, looking around suspiciously. Not just for any possible traps but also for any unwelcome denizens of the house, "Like ever?"

"No he doesn't, so chill out." Janine muttered, stopping long enough to look into a room where a class of the students at the Gym were going through the motions of their hand-to-hand fighting style, "This place trains students in the ninja arts too. But if you haven't noticed by now we don't have your chakra abilities, so we use Pokémon to assist in our techniques."

None of the students had learned her particular method of combat, instead having to rely solely on their Pokémon in serious fighting. The way that she fought while using her own was something that she had been taught by her father Koga, a family style, and it wasn't to be passed down so casually that anyone that entered could learn it.

Still though, Koga was still supposed to be around to instruct them regardless, "The Gym Leader is supposed to be teaching these classes, but no one here can just take my father's spot. He was given the title and there isn't nearly enough support to vacate his position while he's still alive."

"But you said that he's in Team Rocket. That makes him a criminal. People don't care?"

"He is. But he's still the strongest in all of Fuchsia City by far and he's kept from doing terrible things to the town."

"No police force?" Something like that should have been pretty cut and dry as far as Naruto could see. Then again there was an entire Gym training assassins and whatnot, so maybe things weren't so simple.

"In some important areas like Saffron City or Vermillion, but not all places have them. Fucshia is really far away from important centers of Kanto where they'd need to be set up." In most places people handled things themselves or brought their problems to the Gym Leaders and their disciples as they were the most influential people in towns, "Even when they are in some places they're not that strong. Most of the time might makes right, unless enough people get sick of it."

Hm. The Pokémon Continent was starting to seem more and more like the Elemental Nations all the time, minus the hidden villages, constant division, and warfare that characterized his homeland of course.

But really, there wasn't anyone that was deemed talented enough to possibly take over as the proper Gym Leader of Fuchsia City?

"Why don't you try to do it yourself?" Naruto asked her, and it seemed innocent enough. She was a good trainer and fighter and would only get better. She had the pedigree since her father had been the previous leader. And Janine wasn't a depraved criminal... she just got a case of sticky fingers every now and again. Probably because she was just bored, "Erika does it, so does Misty. And Sabrina and Brock can't be _that_ much older than you." They didn't even look to be out of their teens.

"That's simple. It's because I'm just not that good yet." Janine chirped, sounding brighter than she should have as she left the room with the students behind and continued along down the hall, "Aya-obasan isn't even seen as good enough to take my father's place. She keeps saying that I'm stronger than her, so she just instructs people interested in our style the meantime. It's all we can really do."

He didn't like the way she switched moods like that. It reminded him of how he'd do something like that from time to time when the topic he was talking about wasn't something he was happy with, 'Is that what that's like? I can see why people don't like that.' Naruto was about to speak up when his hunger pangs did first, and with great authority.

The sound of his belly growling actually halted Janine in her tracks in the hall as she turned to look at the embarrassed ninja, "…Okay, let's go get you a bite to eat before your stomach devours itself babyface."

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Jiraiya – Pallet Town – Oak's Laboratory)

Days after Jiraiya's run-in with Team Rocket on the Seafoam Islands he made his return to the main place where he could get some decent information on his surroundings. He thought Naruto said that this place was peaceful! Yet once they head off to another land too far to be reached by a scary-powerful criminal organization to train for an eventual showdown with them he runs into a criminal organization there as well.

Whatever. Jiraiya had been dealing with crap like this since he was Naruto's age. So much for his vacation though.

"You really found an Articuno?" When he brought the tale of his run-in underneath the frigid Seafoam Islands to Oak, he could swear he saw the man's professor showing for a moment, "What was it like in person? There are only legends about them."

"It's a gigantic blue bird that's strong as hell, and it would have frozen me solid just by flapping its wings if I hadn't used a jutsu on my hair to insulate my body and break free." Jiraiya said, still stewing a bit at facing off with a legend of the lands firsthand. Just his luck he wouldn't be able to avoid weird stuff. Sure, he introduced himself as being the best to handle strange things but that didn't mean he liked doing it.

That wasn't the kind of freaky that he was into either. The kind he liked involved beautiful women and usually a distinct lack of clothing by one or more parties.

The thought of a criminal organization in possession of a creature as majestic and as powerful as Articuno made Professor Oak sick when he thought about it, "Do you know where it was taken?"

"No." Jiraiya responded. He managed to capture a large amount of Team Rocket members and it didn't take much from that point forward to interrogate them into spilling their guts. Apparently none of them were very resistant to torment, "I got more information than I wanted, but when I asked about the bird none of them had any idea about the thing I actually cared about."

He must have used more than thirty people in interrogation before the info he got started going around in circles. As a matter of fact, he scared some of them so badly he was able to flip them. Hey, he was starting his own information network here too. How damn good was he?

Professor Oak let out a sigh at hearing that. But from what else he had gleaned from talking with Jiraiya, it was clear that he wasn't okay with what was going on either. For whatever reason he had been set off he was mighty sore at the whole Team Rocket thing as well, "I'd hate to ask you to take time away from your intended venture of trying to locate Mew, but would you mind sparing an old man some help in finding out what they plan on doing with Articuno Jiraiya?"

In return Jiraiya just gave him a grin and his answer, "You're not old, you're 50 years young just like me." He said amicably, "Besides… you said people have searched entire lifetimes for Mew without finding it. I'm sure I can spare a little of my time to assist you with something like this."

And it was there that Oak could definitely see Jiraiya as Minato's master, as he seemingly thought nothing of lending him his assistance. This man could be a real friend akin to the young man he had met years and years ago.

If that were the case he knew the direction that he could point him in, "If you feel like making a return to Cinnabar Island I believe there's a colleague there in science that can give you some insight on Mew and help us with our Team Rocket predicament as well."

XxX

(With Naruto – Fuchsia City Gym)

In a rather spacious kitchen, the lady that had been there when Naruto had awoken had an interested and amused expression on her face as she leaned against a counter and watched a now regularly dressed Naruto sitting at a table and destroying anything in front of him that was on a plate. It was a wonder that he hadn't snapped off a piece of his chopsticks yet.

Sitting across from him with a deadpan look on her face was Janine as she also watched Naruto eat what she estimated to be the equivalent of three square meals in one sitting, "Well, in his defense he hasn't really had anything in days." She tried to reason aloud, mostly to herself really.

"He's so cute Janine." The older ninja lady said as she walked over and put a hand on Naruto's head. He of course resented this action and glared up at her while continuing to eat, but since she had been the one to provide him with all of the food that was as far as it went. She was ignoring him anyway, "And you were so worried when you ran onto the grounds holding him up. It was adorable."

"His grave injuries were adorable Aya-obasan?" Janine asked in return with a raised eyebrow. Her attempt to tease her about dragging a boy her age home with her fell flat. It didn't work when it was a matter of emergency, "Do you have any idea how far I had to carry him on my back to get here quickly?"

"You can make anything seem adorable when you do what we do dear." Aya informed her niece, "Trust me, in some cases dark humor will be the only kind you can get." She noticed the insignia on Naruto's headband and took on a thoughtful look, "Do you know where he came from?"

Janine waved her hand dismissively while reaching forward to grab something to nibble on before Naruto managed to eat everything there, "He's from a country far away across the ocean. I've never heard of any place like his."

Yes, she was aware of that. Janine had said as much after Naruto had been treated and she was given the third degree on just where he came from. But that headband of his was telltale of something, "You are aware that he's affiliated with a group that the Fuchsia City Gym had bad blood with around fifteen years ago, aren't you? Before you were born. The battle your father fought against that foreign shinobi from the place known as Konoha?"

That got Naruto's attention. It was news to him that Konoha and these people had issues in the past. Then again when he had been hanging out with his father's soul imprint in his mind he hadn't exactly cared about asking questions that he didn't know to ask.

It didn't seem to be news to Janine though as she drew her hand back after procuring a battered shrimp to snack on, "Yeah I remember the bedtime stories you'd tell me that would piss otou-sama off when he heard them. About how we caused problems with these Konoha ninjas when they started taking our work and it led to a bit of a battle between my father and the Namikaze Minato guy-."

The conversation was instantly put on hold when Naruto who was still in the midst of eating started choking on food, 'W-What?' Did he really just hear that correctly or did his brain stroke off for a second and make him miss something?

"Jeez babyface!" Janine was quick to begin patting him on the back in an effort to help his food pass easier, "Chew your food a bit more alright?" A shellshocked Naruto nodded and took a moment to drink some water in the meantime to settle himself while Janine kept speaking with her aunt, "So what? It doesn't matter to me if otou-sama is sore about getting his ass kicked fifteen years ago. What, do you have a problem with him?"

Aya rolled her eyes and took a third seat at the table with her arms crossed over her chest, "I was nine years old and was in training when this happened, so I didn't even fight. Since I didn't directly suffer a humbling defeat, my brother wasn't killed in battle, and the Konoha people left almost as quickly as they appeared as if they had never been here of course I don't hold anything against him."

Exactly Janine's reasoning in why she didn't care. Naruto didn't know about Kanto at all when they met, let alone that little episode in history, so it wasn't like Konoha and the ninjas of the Fuchsia City Gym were really enemies. As a matter of fact that made him interesting, and why she decided to see what made these people so special after he stopped her heist of the museum in Pewter City.

Apparently there was a lot more than she expected about them, because the story of the Konoha ninjas had been just that for her entire life; merely stories of the past embellished to entertain a little girl. She quickly found out that all of that crap was real. Naruto couldn't move like a bolt around the battlefield, but he had plenty of other amazing things he could do all on his own without the use of a Pokémon the way her moves did.

"I mean, it's not like he's Namikaze Minato's reincarnation or something so what does it matter anyway?" Janine stated in an effort to prove a point.

And she was more or less right. Naruto wasn't his reincarnation or his clone or something, "I'm ah… I'm his kid…" Naruto said quietly and redfaced, "I'm Namikaze Minato's son."

Both Aya and Janine turned and stared at him with wide and surprised eyes. Was he serious? Despite the fact that Minato had been described as having blue eyes and spiky yellow hair they had never seen an image of any kind of him. Therefore looking at Naruto never really drove the comparison home.

They stared at him for so long that Naruto started to feel a bit subconscious and he slowly started picking up the remaining plates that he still had to finish before trying to walk away and leave the room, "I'm gonna go back to my room and finish this. You guys can do whatever it is that you feel like doing right now. So thanks for the food, and later." Hopefully he could avoid the traps and keep the food safe.

It took a few moments after his departure for the absence of Naruto to register with both Aya and Janine who looked at each other with slowly sobering expressions, "He's that man's son?" Aya said in a bit of disbelief, "That's just…"

Koga's defeat at Minato's hands years ago served as the catalyst to drive Koga to desire more power than being a mere Gym Leader could provide him. And now his son was there?

On the other hand, Janine's face slowly started lighting up in a beaming smile at the irony of the entire situation, "That is so cool! Back then our dads almost killed each other and then years later we beat the crap out of each other too!" It was almost poetic in how things managed to work out in a near mirror image of the way things were fifteen years ago.

'You have a very strange definition of what you find cool sweetheart.' Aya thought with a shake of her head.

Well if nothing else at least there wasn't a blood feud in regards to the Fuchsia City/Konohagakure no Sato situation… as if it mattered with how far away the two places were.

XxX

(Cinnabar Island – Pokémon Laboratory)

"Hmm… nothing." Sabrina said, kicking aside one of the fallen files that had fallen onto the ground as the grunts under her current command frantically scoured the rest of the laboratory, "The Boss is really going to be pissed when he finds out that there's nothing here worth giving a damn about."

Not too far away, Koga stood by some of the captured scientists and the more delicate equipment that the lab had to offer so that the idiot underlings didn't destroy anything sensitive in their overzealous searching, "One wouldn't be able to blame the master if he did lose his temper over this. Blaine's betrayal was unforgivable. He had the information on the genetics of Mewtwo, and now with the creature's escape we don't have it in our possession or the means to create a new one ourselves."

"Brilliant to come up with how to form it and treacherous to hide the secret to the most powerful Pokémon in the world." Sabrina commented, idly reading over a paper before shredding it with her psychic powers, "He has to know that no matter what he does from this point forward he's a dead man. It will only be up to him on how fast it happens." And if he didn't cooperate she was quite certain she had Pokémon that could render him under their control with enough time to properly hypnotize him

Then they would kill him. It was as simple as that.

The leader of Team Rocket didn't suffer betrayal amongst those as high up as they were. While Blaine wasn't one of the elite triad like Sabrina, Lt. Surge, and Koga he was just as important as the head scientist that ran all of their illegal experiments.

There wasn't another mind in Kanto with his skill, thus making him irreplaceable. The fact that he was also a powerful Gym Leader that could defend himself was only a bonus, but now it was a problem.

"He isn't getting off of Cinnabar Island wherever he is." Koga stated with full confidence and determination, "The ports are all locked down by our people." That wasn't going to be much of anything that could stop him though. Blaine was a Gym Leader and his Pokémon were extremely dangerous, but then again that was why Lt. Surge was in charge of keeping the perimeter of the island secure, "Use your mind thing to find out where he is so we can get this over with."

A raised eyebrow of amusement came from the psychic Pokémon trainer at Koga's standoffish tone, "Aw, still upset about what I showed you and the others from Celadon City? You really don't like blond kids do you?" She joked, knowing full well what his issue was when it came to that.

Blonde? From Konoha's ilk? Blue eyes? Strange abilities? That strange blue ball of energy that he also had to deal with from that Jiraiya person? Yes, he disliked Naruto immensely and he had never been plagued with the boy's presence even once until that point.

Especially because of the strange spirit of the man in his standing guard in his mind according to Sabrina's mental report.

The little bastard was Namikaze's son, and he would wager that Jiraiya was connected to the man somehow as well. These strange foreign ninjas were a problem, and his daughter was running around with one. Not just any one of them, the direct spawn of the man that had dealt him his only complete defeat in unlimited battle up to that point. And then he gave him a fate worse than killing him. He spared him.

The man went silent, but Sabrina didn't need to hear him speak to know that he was pissed off. It was all over his face. But it wouldn't do to antagonize her comrade anymore than necessary for it to be fun for her so she adhered to his request. It would help to get the job done, "Alright, let's find out which one of you knows where Blaine is. He's the guest of honor to our little surprise party and he's missing all of the festivities."

"Even if one of us knew we'd never tell you." One of the tied up scientists said despite his fear for the situation. He was well aware of what they wanted his boss for, and something like that couldn't go to Team Rocket.

No, they had all worked for them and had endeavored to sever ties together. There was only so much they were willing to do even if Team Rocket still had more scientists. Without Blaine's amassed work nothing would ever take shape again. They would have to work for years just to have a chance at getting close even if they had someone of his intellect, which they did not.

"I know you won't." Sabrina said, placing her hand underneath the man who had spoken out's chin to get him to look up at her, "Weaklings like you always try to act strong only when they're cornered and don't have any options. As much as I'd like to test just how resolute you are, Koga's right and we don't have time for that. Go Hypno, Hypnosis."

From her Poke Ball came her powerful hypnotist of a Pokémon that immediately began placing them under its spell. It was a bit more complex than simply putting someone to sleep, but eventually it would break the information that its master desired out of whichever one of the scientists had it.

It was only a matter of time.

XxX

With the high afternoon sun blazing overhead an older man with a bald head, a thick white mustache over his lip, and a lab coat over dress clothing walked through the busy streets of the tourist town of Cinnabar Island. In contrast to the vast majority of the people that were walking on in a mix of casual beachside clothing and bathing suits he did not have a lighthearted expression or a look of any kind of enjoyment on his face. It was appropriately grim.

This was not a good situation for him or for anyone else for that matter even if he was the only one really aware of it, even if the results wouldn't become known immediately by all. The ferries off of the island were guarded by that musclehead Lt. Surge and Team Rocket masquerading as mere island officials.

While Surge would never be mistaken for a rocket scientist that was irrelevant, because he wasn't fool enough to let anyone that wished to leave this island pass before word went out from the others searching for their target that he was caught and in Team Rocket's possession.

Blaine just continued to walk quickly through the crowd, tightly clutching a briefcase in one hand and a cane shaped like a question mark in the other, wracking his brain to try and figure some way off of Cinnabar Island since all vessels were being held up. He didn't have any water Pokémon, especially any big enough to use to swim away with and expect any kind of chance of survival.

He needed to survive and track down Mewtwo. It was his responsibility that it existed to begin with. If it somehow fell into the wrong hands everyone on the Pokémon Continent could be in serious trouble.

That plan seemed to be put on some serious hold after a strong hand clasped itself onto his shoulder, "Blaine?" The man in question froze up at his name being called out and turned around to see a strangely-attired individual a few inches taller than him with long white hair and a wart on his nose, "I need you to come with me."

Really now? Well he wouldn't go quietly. He wasn't a Gym Leader for nothing as he would show the moment he got the chance.

But this person didn't seem to be a member of Team Rocket. He seemed far too good-natured for something like that, "I'm sorry, but the Gym is temporarily closed if you want to battle. Important matters have come up and I need to leave town for a bit." It was better not to get too many people that had no business with this involved.

Strangely this man only seemed to put a grin on his face at that touch of information, "Ah, so does this mean that you need some help getting off? Maybe because of some jackbooted thugs stationed around the harbors? Perhaps I could be of some assistance with that."

Definitely not Team Rocket. No, one of them would have simply tried to knock him unconscious if they had gotten this close and dragged him away. And while he still didn't trust this man it was probably the best alternative that he had to remaining on the island and risking his luck.

XxX

On the waters surrounding Cinnabar Island there were multiple ferries carrying people to the island that were being kept from docking due to a request from the island itself telling them to wait until they were cleared to do so.

That was fine for most people onboard the majority of the ships, but for people that had dealt with enough coincidences to know when to act on things feeling suspicious, Cinnabar Island might as well have been outlined in a big red beacon.

"I hope we're all ready for some problems today babyface." Janine said to him as they both rode away from the ferry they had jumped ship from. Naruto's Cloyster was an extremely fast swimmer in exchange for being so slow on land, "Professor Oak might have told you where your sensei was, but do you really think he wanted you here now? I feel like we're walking into something messy."

Even after saying that she wasn't exactly clamoring to get back onto the ferry either, and it was understood why Naruto was impatient. Getting stuck on a ferry that was being denied entry to the city without any news as to why was eerily similar to what had happened in Saffron City, only here there wasn't much anyone could do to stop them if they decided to go ashore theirselves.

Especially after Professor Oak had informed Naruto during the call they had sent him while in Fuchsia City that Jiraiya had endured his own run-in with Team Rocket and was going there to Cinnabar to assist someone that needed it.

"Do you think your sensei is okay?" Janine asked Naruto, sitting behind him on Hogohei as they sped toward the steadily approaching volcanic island, "I mean he came here to help someone that was in trouble and the island is closed for entry so it has to be big. Is he really strong enough to do something like that by himself?"

"Ero-sennin is the last person in the world that would need our help." Naruto said with a small smile on his determined face, "That guy can do almost anything, I swear." Like he had commented on in the past; Jiraiya was eccentric (understatement), but that simply belied just how incredible a person he really was, "You'd better not tell him I said that though."

Janine rolled her eyes but nodded anyway. Why he didn't just openly acknowledge that he fully respected and trusted Jiraiya she just didn't know. For a teacher and a student they sure dealt each other way more backhanded compliments than healthily necessary, "You mean like how you don't want me to tell him that you know who your dad is?"

She still found that little connection in their six degrees of separation to be completely amazing.

"That's right." Naruto's good-natured smile turned into a bit of a mischievous grin, "I haven't decided yet if I want to use that to guilt trip a new jutsu out of him or to use it to surprise him during a spar so I can get an opening to actually beat him next time."

"Ego against functionality I see. What a dilemma."

"Hey, you've gotta take your victories where you can get 'em against him. Even without toads he's still really strong."

"Again with the skyscraper-sized toads? Can't you do that too in your story?"

"They're really real damn it, I'll show you one day! Is it really that unbelievable?"

"All things considered not really, and I am a bit inclined to believe you since you've never lied before but that's not the point."

"It's exactly the point!"

Back and forth banter aside, once they snuck onto the island it wouldn't be time for jokes anymore. Even though both of them had gotten in a week of training after recovering at the Fuchsia City Gym and had obtained a few days of battle experience for their Pokémon on the ferry against the other passengers that wasn't an assurance of anything after what happened in Celadon City.

Strength alone wasn't the determining factor in the defeat. As powerful as Sabrina had been both herself and with her Pokémon she had simply outsmarted Naruto and forced him to beat himself in the end instead of fighting a prolonged battle.

Well in case it ever happened again he'd made some improvements and upgrades in the meantime and he'd be bringing a few surprises of his own to the next party. To be quite honest Naruto was itching for an incident to take place.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Konoha 11: Fuchsia City<span>

Having his people that had been dispatched on missions all over Kanto attacked when they were just working to try and pay for the supplies to fund a long and treacherous voyage home did not sit well with Minato. For a man that was quick to anger this was the most surefire way to incur his wrath.

Not that the ninjas being trained and dispatched out of the Fuchsia City Gym cared. They didn't know who he was.

While the Konoha visitors to Kanto were able to deal with these problems for the most part, treating it like any other mission of similar natures that they took on during their current wartime situation at home, the last thing that the band of sailing shinobi needed was to fight a war at home only to have to deal with one here as well.

At least here there was something he could do to protect them. It was quite easy to get close enough to Koga to speak with him… he was a Gym Leader and he took challenges out of his Gym.

And that was where things broke down. Instead of a sanctioned battle for a badge from the Gym which was the premise that Minato used to get inside of the Gym after Henging himself it turned into a full-scale deathmatch once he dropped his cover in order to talk. The doors locked leaving the two of them inside alone and Koga proceeded to take him on. Only one of them would be allowed out, and it would be whoever reached the door alive.

It was lucky that the section of the mansion dedicated to the battle of a Gym Leader against a challenger was so durable and meant to take the most severe of punishment because a fight in a normal place would have ended badly for the building.

However in the end, a dirty, grimy-looking Minato stood victorious. While he didn't look any worse for wear by way of any physical wounds that hadn't been the main threat of the battle. The air of the entire battlefield was contaminated with poisonous gases via one of the more devious uses of one of Koga's Pokémon.

'Such an indirect and effective manner of battling.' Minato thought to himself as his vision swam quite a bit due to the poison in his system, 'A man has to breathe, and in a room like this… there was no way he wasn't going to get me.'

Minato had to defeat him quickly, but the use of a Muk to protect the immediate area around his body from being reached made it more difficult than just using his speed to dart around and try to get an angle to take him down. The gigantic toxic blob of a Pokémon would simply swallow up any Hiraishin kunai he used to fight with.

Eventually he risked using one of his Pokémon to provide him an opening which brought the battle to a short end when his use of Beedrill resulted in Koga being poisoned by its stingers and Minato finishing him directly with one well managed placement of the Hiraishin formula he had placed on the ground and a Rasengan that slammed him into the ground.

So there Minato stood, right over the defeated Koga in the damaged, lowly lit dojo-like room. The difficulty in breathing made him wonder idly how he had fought a full-scale battle in that environment and hadn't suffocated or at least succumbed to the poison in his body by now. Heh, he was just that tough apparently.

Koga could no longer move his body due to the injuries dealt to him by that crushing Rasengan attack. His body wasn't tough enough to deal with such a thing without some sort of method of reinforcement the way his Muk's had been. And now he was set to be killed by this man that had brought a rival group of ninjas into Kanto to compete with the services of his Gym's trainees, "Finish me off then. There's only room for one ninja clan in Kanto."

Minato just stared down at him sternly and reached his hand down at Koga who shut his eyes in preparation for the end. Instead of feeling a blade or the crushing pain of the attack that had put him in dire straits to begin with, Koga opened his eyes to see that all Minato had done was retrieved an Antidote from his person to cure his own poisoning.

"No wonder you could fight through this thick gas the way you did." The filthy blond man said as he injected the serum into his body and began walking away, "Don't attack my ninja again. We're just working for enough money to leave. We have our own home across the ocean, we don't want to take your business."

Wait that was it?

He wasn't even going to kill him?

That infuriated Koga. This had been a battle between two shinobi. It wasn't a mere exhibition battle between a Gym Leader and a challenger, it was a true fight to the finish. He could no longer fight, therefore Minato needed to kill him. That was the way it was supposed to be.

With hatred in his eyes, Koga shakily pulled one more Poke Ball from underneath his ninja clothing and held it out, "Voltorb! Selfdestr-!" In a yellow flash, Minato vanished and reappeared right over Koga to punt the Poke Ball out of his hand before he could release the Voltorb, "Damn you…"

"What are you doing?" Minato asked coldly, "That wouldn't just kill me and you." If it even managed to hit him before he teleported away, "With all of the gas in here you'd have destroyed this entire mansion and probably set the forest outside of Fuchsia City on fire before anyone could stop it."

He didn't peg Koga as a man desperate enough to resort to that kind of measure. Until the battle had intensified they had been on rather amicable terms. He didn't seem like he had this much anger inside of him, but defeat in the manner that Minato had done so could pull such a thing from a man this proud.

"You've already humiliated the Fuchsia Gym." Koga seethed since his suicide attack had been prevented, "When word of your victory in this deathmatch gets out and that you spared my life you'll have killed my reputation. The reputation of our entire Gym; that you deemed me unworthy of taking seriously enough to kill."

"Then I won't let it slip that I won." Minato replied without missing a beat as he walked away again, "I'm not out to destroy anyone, but you were a threat to my men."

"Then kill me and prove it!"

"I won't. There's no reason to. It's over and we'll be long gone on the way home by the time you recover."

"You won't even grant me a later rematch to regain some pride before you flee Kanto?"

"I would… but there's something more important that I need to get back to as soon as possible. Sorry." He turned and spared his enemy one last glance before leaving, "Goodbye." And with that he vanished in a flash of yellow to his closest Hiraishin marker.

He needed to rest desperately after that battle. The poison had drained away too much from him, too much stamina had been drained to risk wasting the chakra needed for a jump back to Pallet Town or even a series of small bursts from place to place on the way.

And Koga was left alone with his anger. He had been deemed the most gifted Gym Leader that Fuchsia City had ever had. The most powerful user of poison-type Pokémon in the world. And he had been defeated by a man that had been sympathetic enough to keep him alive after a duel.

Upon an audible shout of pure hatred, the doors opened up and the underlings of the Gym rushed to treat Koga, incorrectly assuming he had somehow won since he was the only one there and the doors were the only way out. They had thwarted his last attempt to die of shame by himself inside of the locked room by opening the doors and discovering him.

Instead of letting them think this and saving face amongst his students and juniors, the moment he was able to speak on the situation he let them in on the truth; that he had been defeated and spared by Namikaze Minato of Konohagakure no Sato.

The story of the battle stayed within the walls of the ninja mansion and was never breathed beyond it, a secret punishable by excommunication or death if spoken to one not cleared to know such a thing. But everyone within that had passed through as a ninja in this place would eventually hear the story at least once, and since the battle hadn't been seen by anyone but the Gym Leader himself and the Konoha ninjas were soon gone from Kanto there was no one to back it up, putting it into legend status as the years dragged on.

It was told in order to teach that there was no such thing as a plateau of strength. There were always ways that one could improve, and power became very important to those in the Gym close in age to the defeated Gym Leader, as he had to fend off repeated challenges for his title until the majority of his generation died or gave up. They foolishly saw his defeat as a telltale sign of his skills waning but he killed each and every challenger that came for him, the same way he expected them to do to him if given the chance. Even so he still obsessed over someone that had defeated him using the strangest abilities he had ever seen and he started using his Pokémon for more than assisting in his ninja illusions.

He used them to help him fight using his own body as well and developed a new method of battling as a result that he kept closely, only teaching to his wife, his younger sister, and eventually his daughter.

From that day that he fought Namikaze Minato on forward, Koga of the Fuchsia City Gym had become a changed man.

And not for the better.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Arcanine): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire), ExtremeSpeed (Normal), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Electric).

Hogohei (Cloyster): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal), Spike Cannon (Normal), Surf (Water).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting), Revenge (Fighting), Substitute (Normal), Hi Jump Kick, Blaze Kick (Fire).

Sazakumoru (Cubone): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock), Swords Dance (Normal), Thrash (Normal), Earthquake (Ground).

Shujinken (Misdreavus): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Double Team (Normal), Shadow Ball (Ghost), Pain Split (Normal), Thunderbolt (Electric).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug), Flash (Normal), Sucker Punch (Dark), Agility (Normal), Poison Jab (Poison).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison), Sludge Bomb (Poison), Screech (Normal), Flamethrower (Fire), Hidden Power (Normal), Strength (Normal).

Golbat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying), Wing Attack (Flying), Aerial Ace (Flying), Double Team (Normal), Haze (Ice), Venoshock (Poison).

Venomoth: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal), Silver Wind (Bug), Gust (Flying), Poison Fang (Poison).

Forretress: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Protect (Normal), Selfdestruct (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Take Down (Normal), Gyro Ball (Steel), Bide (Normal), Mirror Shot (Steel), Iron Defense (Steel), Flash Cannon (Steel).

Jiraiya's Current Pokémon Team

Jynx: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Lovely Kiss (Normal), Powder Snow (Ice), DoubleSlap (Normal), Ice Punch (Ice), Heart Stamp (Psychic), Avalanche (Ice), Wake-Up Slap (Fighting), Body Slam (Normal).

Lapras: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Sing (Normal), Water Gun (Water), Surf (Water), Mist (Ice), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Water Pulse (Water), Body Slam (Normal), Rain Dance (Water), Ice Beam (Ice).

* * *

><p><strong>I'm going to really enjoy writing the next few chapters. I'm looking forward to sitting down and typing them out. Now you know that you love what you do when you look forward to eking out 10k words or more. Too bad I don't have any kind of actual author chops or I'd try my hand at writing a novel.<strong>

**Either way Naruto's recovered, Jiraiya had a run-in with Team Rocket and a fucking Articuno of all things because I'm evil, and Cinnabar Island's Gym Leader is in some deep trouble because the bad guys want Mewtwo.**

**I can't say what's going to happen next, but I'll just say that Jiraiya is really going to miss the fact that he can't summon any toads.**

**Hope you enjoyed and will continue to do so in the future. Kenchi out.**


	13. Negative Balance

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. I'm legit. I'm too legit. In fact I'm too legit to quit. And when the day may come where I'm no longer legit… I will then be honor-bound to acquiesce and quit.

**Chapter 13: Negative Balance  
><strong>

* * *

><p>The arrival of the ninjakunoichi pair onto the shores of Cinnabar Island came with a touch of strangeness to it. Instead of reaching the harbor that seemed to be backed up to capacity due to island request keeping the ferries from moving on schedule they chose to land at a beach. There was too much open space to keep completely locked down, and even without knowing what was going on both Naruto and Janine lucked out enough to make it there without any problems.

"No one's on the beach." Naruto said, scratching his head confusedly as they started their way into the town. The beachfront businesses were booming at the moment due to the fact that hanging out on the beach itself seemed to be forbidden, "Why is the ocean locked down? This reminds me of something."

"It reminds me of what's happening in Saffron City." Janine assisted in helping him recall the bastard gate guards that refused to let them through. There were uniformed operatives all over the place moving along with the crowds of afternoon tourists in the streets. Two places needed this kind of totalitarian security? Not likely, "I'll ask again only because this is starting to get to me, but are you sure your sensei is alright if he's here?"

A small glare was shot Janine's way from Naruto due to the fact that she kept bringing up the point, "Yes. Ero-sennin is fine. We just have to find him." Seriously, how hard could it be to find a tall guy with big white hair wearing clothes from an entirely different land? They should have been able to knock this out within the first twenty minutes of showing up, "It'd be easier without all of these people in the way."

Yeah, all of those people… so tall. Jerks. Well not really jerks, but how was a still growing boy like him supposed to see around or over them? What, was he going to jump around like a flea every two seconds to get a better look?

Even Janine had to admit as much. She was a bit taller than Naruto, but she was still shorter than everyone else. She was no adult or even a real teenager, she was the same age as him. It was pretty annoying. And the whole ninja thing started kicking in about being surrounded by strangers, even if they were just regular people there to enjoy the sun and the attractions that Cinnabar had to offer, "Yeah, you've got a point…"

The thoughtful tone in her speech was lost on the searching Naruto who was trying to find a way to get by. It was lost on him at least until he found her sitting on his shoulders, using him like a perch to get a better look, "Oi! What the hell?"

"Calm down Babyface, I'm not that heavy am I?" Janine asked, using a hand to help her focus and scan the area while the other was on top of Naruto's head for balance's sake, "It's working. I can see way better now. Thanks."

With a bit of a growl, Naruto just acquiesced and held on around her legs to make sure she stayed up there safely in case he was jostled underneath, "We're gonna stick out like a sore thumb like this."

"No we're not." For the most part, to anyone that ignored what they were talking about and the scowl on Naruto's face they were just two kids enjoying the day, "If it bothers you that much why don't you just do that transforming thing that you do? You said you can do it for two people if I don't resist, well go ahead."

"It doesn't bother me! And I can't just use Henge!" Naruto almost hissed out while craning his eyes up to get a look at her, "There's nowhere we can go where someone can't see us on this island, and wouldn't we blow our cover if I did something like that?"

The number of people that would freak out if two kids suddenly turned into one grown person wouldn't be small. Word would spread around pretty quickly, and if this place was locked down for the reason that they figured Team Rocket would be on the lookout for the two of them and whatever they transformed into to hide in plain sight.

It was just an idea though. It wasn't as if either of them had any better ones, and they weren't really trying to do anything sneaky. They were just looking for Jiraiya. That was all. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing would happen to them out in the open, and it wasn't as if whatever Team Rocket had going on here would be setting off warning flares telling everyone that they were doing things.

"Huh. Well then, I knew it."

What? She actually saw something from up there? He wasn't the tallest guy in the world (understatement), so way to go Janine. That girl had to be eagle-eyed or something to spot something that could actually help them out.

"You see?" When Naruto turned his eyes back up to her she was still looking out over the other people, not pointing him in any general direction at all, "It's not that bad holding me up here is it?" That was what she was talking about? Really? Come on, "You don't have to keep pretending you don't like it. It's okay, I won't think you're a perv or something."

Not the time for the back and forth banter, but Naruto just couldn't help but to indulge, red-faced as he was, "I'll say it again, you're not that cute." He got a pair of knuckles ground into both sides of his head for his troubles and his honesty, "…Sakura-chan's cuter." He added challengingly through gritted teeth to try and piss her off more.

She had just been teasing him at first to lighten things up, but his response was really kind of annoying to her. She didn't even know who this 'Sakura' person was, but it still rubbed her the wrong way.

A yelp had to be held back when Naruto pinched both of kunoichi's legs hard in retaliation and the two glared down and up at each other. It didn't take much longer before they were ignoring that anything had ever happened and got back to work, "If you were your sensei where would you be?"

"Well the beach is closed, so strip club, cathouse, hot springs… any place with girls not wearing very much would be my first guess really." Naruto said, trying to think past his first instinct that would come to mind when considering Jiraiya's personality. Why would he even come there anyway? Professor Oak didn't tell him why he was on the island, "But I'm pretty sure that the second he realized there was something like this lockdown thing going on he'd have gotten serious, so don't worry about what I said."

Right. She'd worry about it later, because that was something to be wary of. Who left that man in charge of a kid? If he was going to be going places with the two of them he'd be getting an eye kept on him at all times.

The fact remained that getting serious for a ninja usually meant hiding and finding a way to lay low. So that had to mean that Jiraiya was doing that, waiting for an opening to slip away unnoticed, waiting for a gap to make itself known in the lockdown.

Where was the best place to hide at a time like this? A group shored up by three Gym Leaders had subtly taken control of the entire island.

So who would be better to neutralize first in a situation like this? If they were Team Rocket the priority in such a hostile and more open manner that they chose to operate would be to neutralize or otherwise take down the most dangerous commodity that the island had to offer to keep anyone who got wise to what was going on from doing something about it.

"Babyface go to the Gym."

"Seriously, I know we just argued but you're really not heavy at all. I can keep you up there all day, you don't have to insult me like that."

"No… you idiot, I don't mean go work out. The Pokémon Gym, we need to find the Cinnabar Island Gym Leader. He can probably help us."

Naruto's face lit up in understanding and all of a sudden Janine had to hold on tight while Naruto hotfooted it around the Cinnabar Island populace and tourists in order to look for the Gym. Maybe asking for directions would help, "Oh! Why didn't we think of that first? But are you sure he's not one of Team Rocket too?"

God, for everyone's sake Janine hoped not. If he was then that meant that the half of Gym Leaders in the region were conspiring toward whatever endgame they were trying to go for, and those odds shouldn't have made anyone feel too hopeful.

XxX

(With Jiraiya – Cinnabar Island Gym)

The Cinnabar Gym probably had the most open land on the island dedicated to it. There was no plant life in the area due to the proximity that the facility had to the volcano. It was mostly rocky terrain with trenches dug around the large building just in case of lava flow, bridges spanning over them.

The few tropical trees in the area were woefully unsuited for any kind of stealthy activity, thus the toad sage had to get a bit creative with his approach.

"Crap, this place is locked down tight." Jiraiya said, as with Blaine he hid himself on the roof of the Gym building. Before leaving they had to retrieve Blaine's Pokémon from the place and send the others that he couldn't take away to Professor Oak, and they managed to get on-site rather easily since no one had been there yet, "If we make a fuss here you can say goodbye to getting off of this rock with any subtlety."

A quick headcount done by Blaine during the outright rush on his laboratory counted over thirty underlings that managed to subdue his assistants before anyone could get to a single Poke Ball, mostly due to the psychic Sabrina masking the presence of the attackers that were specially chosen by the ninja Koga. He was able to escape due to the urging of his subordinates that they would keep them back.

He didn't think they'd be able to do so for long, but they still insisted that he be the one to make it out.

So thirty of what he assumed was their best to come after him directly. In order to keep the harbor locked down they needed even more men in uniform at each place which they had in spades from the one that he tried to use before learning that doing so would be a no-go. And they had agents patrolling the town itself, going through it with a fine-toothed comb to pick up some trace of him.

And he still couldn't leave yet.

"I still can't go." Blaine revealed, seemingly dead-set on his reasoning as to why, "I'm afraid I've put you into jeopardy to retrieve my Pokémon for a reason other than our escape sir, at least for now." Catching onto Jiraiya's exasperated look he felt the need to explain, "They're after information that only I possess."

"All the more reason to start looking for a way to get you off of the island."

"But I'm not the only place that they can obtain it." Blaine stated in a rather grave tone, "They want to know how to create a Pokémon of unimaginable potential and power. The notes on how to clone it and the steps taken by me to ensure that it came to life exist in the depths of the ruined Pokémon Mansion on this island. That place was destroyed when it escaped. It is inhospitable to people now. Pokémon have moved in and taken it over making it quite dangerous."

So they had to go traversing back through the city to try and locate a decrepit old mansion with who knows what in it? Just for information on a Pokémon? That had better have been one hell of a Pokémon then, "You didn't destroy the information yourself already?"

With that, Blaine turned away from Jiraiya's gaze with a bit of shame in his eyes, "I used to be a member of Team Rocket. I originally worked on the Mewtwo Project at their behest, and other projects at their request that interested me. But after Mewtwo's escape the experiments grew crueler in nature. That was almost a year ago. Eventually I had enough and conspired to break away, but you can't hide anything from Sabrina."

"That still doesn't explain why you didn't destroy the information." Jiraiya pointed out, shoving Blaine's head down when a few sentries checked up at the roof from the ground, "If you quit there would be no more reason to hold on to blasted research like that." This was beginning to reek of some Orochimaru-level kind of crimes against nature.

"There's a problem involving the Mewtwo and myself… and I needed the research to determine what the issue was. I still do." He said, adjusting his sunglasses on his face, "My health is suffering as a result of what I did to create it, and if my hunch is correct Mewtwo is in similar straits as myself. At the rate my health is declining, I'll be dead within four months time if I can't find it."

"And what exactly did you do?"

"I would rather not say at this time."

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes on Blaine and gave him a little killing intent, but for a man that just told him he was going to die there wasn't much else that he could do to intimidate him into presenting more info, "Fine… we don't have time for this right now. But when the time comes and we get ourselves off of this island in one piece I'm going to need some answers out of you as to just what you mean."

Just because he wasn't forthcoming with what Jiraiya wanted to know on the spot didn't mean that Blaine wasn't affected by Jiraiya's show of authority, "O-Of course." What kind of terrifying man was this? All of a sudden Blaine started coughing due to the stress that Jiraiya's threatening aura put on his body.

Oh, that wasn't good. He didn't look as sick as he said, but if killing intent could do that then he obviously wasn't lying. Immediately Jiraiya went to help him muffle the coughs, but it was too late. Damn it, why couldn't everyone get a crash course in basic stealth? Learn to cover up your involuntary bodily noises at times when they could get you killed, "Come on, keep quiet." Jiraiya whispered to the man, "You can fall to pieces later."

"Did you hear that?" One of the Team Rocket sentries asked, gathering a few of his nearby comrades in suspicion. They had a hunch that something was wrong up on the roof, but they didn't want to waste the resources away from searching the Gym grounds since there was no way off without being seen, "Go Houndour! Odor Sleuth!"

From a Poke Ball, a small black dog with short pointed ears and a short tail emerged. It had an orange snout and underbelly, along with white bands around its ankles and rib markings on its back. It began sniffing around and moments later growled and let out a few barks looking up toward the top of the Gym.

Now with probable cause to do so, those with Pokémon capable of flight sent them out to scan the roof. A Murkrow and a Spearow went up to check the place over and let out resounding caws that let any who could hear them know that Jiraiya and Blaine were there.

"How are you for fighting?" Jiraiya asked suddenly, eyes hardening on the flying-type Pokémon that had blown their cover.

"In my opinion I'm strong as far as trainers are concerned, but my body is admittedly frail." Blaine admitted before checking over the edge now that there was no more reason to hide. What he saw forced his eyebrows to shoot up past his nonexistent hairline in surprise, "I don't think that will be necessary though."

Standing up to see what he meant, Jiraiya was in for a shock to his system when he saw that the Team Rocket members and the Houndour that had been called out to locate them had already been subdued, "Brat?" He said to himself as if wondering what

Naruto and Janine stood around the defeated enemies with Naruto's Misdreavus excitedly flying circles around them all and with Janine's Grimer completely smothering the Houndour with its entire body, having choked it into submission via this method.

"Way to go track star." Naruto said to Janine, the two of them sharing a cheeky grin at their sudden victory, "I didn't know you could run that fast. I thought I'd get here first and beat them all before you caught up."

"Don't insult me like that Babyface." Janine returned, wagging a finger chidingly in return, "I've been running around with your manic tail for over two months now. It was either train and get faster or get left behind. What do you think I was doing all early morning while you went off to train?"

"I thought you were just sleeping."

"All according to plan."

On the roof, Jiraiya had his mouth hanging open in shock. What the hell were Naruto and that ninja girl doing there? Before he could think too much about it, Blaine started trying to cover up his coughing again and obtained his attention once more, "Come on. Don't worry about them. Those kids are with me… sort of. Brat!"

Hearing Jiraiya shout, Naruto turned up to the roof and had his eyes light up at the sight of his sensei seemingly standing tall atop the Gym building, "Ero-sennin!"

And that knocked the wind right out of Jiraiya's triumphant sails then and there. He had been preening like a peacock as it seemed that Naruto had actually been excited to see him, but then the youngster had to go and call him by that name again. Well now wasn't the time to worry about that, "Naruto why are you here? This place isn't safe right now!"

"We noticed." Both Naruto and Janine stated flatly before Naruto took the lead and continued speaking, "Do you know how many people and Pokémon we had to beat to get here? The Gym property was swarming with these guys. Why the hell are _you _here?" He concluded, pointing up at Jiraiya accusingly.

In order to answer, Jiraiya pulled Blaine onto his feet to display him to the children, "Professor Oak asked me to come here and extricate this guy here. Now I see why. I should have figured it out from the first run-in, but these Team Rocket guys don't mess around."

With a sigh, Naruto kicked at the dirt on the ground as Jiraiya made his way down the side of the Gym with Blaine in tow, "How'd anything like this even happen? A whole city?"

"They got Saffron apparently since it's a lot like this place." Janine interjected, "Cinnabar Island's got to be way easier to get some control over since it's actually isolated on the seas instead of being in the middle of the country the way Saffron City is."

"True enough." Blaine said, adjusting his ruffled dress clothes underneath his lab jacket, "Slipping sleepers into the city infrastructure couldn't have been that hard. Dock workers and island security is always hiring due to the amount of tourists that we get here. With everyone coming and going at all times you can't keep track of them all." But at the sheer amount that they needed to lock the place down? How many people did Team Rocket have?

Well now that Jiraiya was found and it was determined why Cinnabar Island was a prison unto itself, that left one option clear for Naruto, "Since we know what's going on and Ero-sennin is here now we can go kick some ass and put everything back to normal."

"Nope."

"What?" Naruto said in disbelief when Jiraiya shot him down, "What do you mean no? But you're-!"

"I came here to get this man off of the island." Jiraiya said, sternly pointing at Blaine, "That was the original mission. Team Rocket isn't putting anyone in clear danger, they're just searching for him. When they realize that he isn't here they'll leave. I don't know about you, but taking on an army without the toads isn't my idea of fun. These Pokémon are serious weapons." A sudden playing shriek in his ear broke his focus and he turned to scream at the banshee he saw floating in the air, "Ah! Ghost!"

Somehow he had salt in his pocket that he threw right at Shujinken before he did a warding dance, holding his index fingers up in a cross position, "Ah, that's my Pokémon." Naruto said, gesturing his Misdreavus to fly over to him to stop scaring Jiraiya. He couldn't really blame the man, "Say hi to Shujinken. Shuji-chan… well I guess you already said hi to Ero-sennin."

"That's a ghost kid." Jiraiya said, still holding up his fingers in a cross to ward off the spiritual evil just in case. Janine seemed to think it was funny since Naruto had reacted in a similar manner albeit with far more screaming. People from the Elemental Nations seemed to be really superstitious, "You're telling me you keep a bad luck ghost around with you? What if she steals your soul?"

With Shujinken freaking Jiraiya out to an extent, Naruto called her back into her Poke Ball. She had already helped them sneak up Team Rocket in the open field, so her job had been performed admirably, "Janine hasn't stolen it yet so I guess Shuji-chan is okay too."

"Hey!" Janine exclaimed with a glare and a pout. She thought that they were way past the whole thing about meeting when she tried to rob the museum he was protecting.

As informative as this reunion between these interesting people seemed to be, Blaine had important matters at hand, "Excuse me, but it is very important that I retrieve the notes of our research from the Pokémon Mansion as soon as possible." Yes, things were still rather tense, "I need to get them now."

"So we have to go all the way back through town?" Jiraiya said with a twitching eye before pointing at the volcano nearby, "Why couldn't your lab have been in the volcano or something like other bad guys?"

"This isn't a movie. That's too dangerous." Blaine said, lowering his sunglasses enough to glare at Jiraiya, "…And besides, a volcano would have been the first place anyone looked for it if they thought about it, just like you did just now."

A lightbulb lit up in Naruto's head after hearing what Blaine needed and where it happened to be, "I know where that place is. I can go get it."

"_Team 6 report, over!"_ An authoritative voice requested over the radio attached to the hip of one of the thrashed Team Rocket members. Naruto, Janine, and even Blaine knew the voice as Lt. Surge, _"The entire group sent to search Cinnabar Gym aren't responding! Something's wrong, they may have found Blaine! Begin clearing the streets of the populace and get a response team over to the Gym to see what's wrong!"_ He was probably running distance support if he wasn't volunteering to go himself.

Well it seemed like there was no choice. Fine. Jiraiya would stay back and draw the attention to himself while Naruto would take Blaine to gather what he needed from the mansion place. It wasn't his ideal scenario to be bait, but if they all ran away they'd just disperse throughout the island. At least this way when it was discovered that Jiraiya could hand them their asses he could get them to divert more of their forces away from going over the town with a fine-toothed comb.

If it went to a point where he had to get away he could do it.

"Fine. Go with the mad scientist here and grab what he needs." Jiraiya said, pushing Naruto off coaxingly to take Blaine away with him, "Don't drag ass. We don't have the time to waste with you carrying this guy there."

"I'm not carrying him anywhere." Naruto replied, looking a bit affronted at Jiraiya's assumption, "That's what Ranbouen is for! Come on bud, we're in a hurry here!"

The puppy? Jiraiya could hardly believe that little Ranbouen, Naruto's Growlithe, would be able to carry a full-sized adult around at a good enough speed to avoid being bogged down once they were sighted.

But when that Poke Ball burst open he was in for quite the surprise.

With the blue cloth still tied around his neck with the black leaf emblazoned on it for ID purposes, Ranbouen wasn't so little anymore. Instead of a little tuft of light-colored hair on his head it was now covered in it except for the orange fur around his eyes and ears. He had the same light-colored fur on his chest and around his ankles as well as his much longer tail, but the rest of his body had the same orange and black pattern that he had before. His fangs inside of his mouth had grown larger to go with his larger size, and all in all he looked much wickeder in appearance.

And Jiraiya instantly hid his long ponytail descending down his back from the creature's view. If that damn thing tried to bite his ass now he'd be taking an entire cheek home with him when he did.

"Say hello to Arcanine!" Naruto said as he hopped on the back of the gigantic dog-like Pokémon. He was more than double the size of a full grown man, "Janine bought me a Fire Stone in Celadon City to apologize for getting in a fight with me before we got there. That's how I got him to evolve. Now come on old guy, let's go!"

Blaine knew his fire Pokémon, and a bit impressed at the sight of Naruto's own, he let Naruto's 'old guy' comment slide and slowly climbed onto the back of the large beast, "I'll be counting on you young man. My research depends on how fast you can go."

"You don't have to worry about speed." Naruto said, rubbing Ranbouen on top of his head, "Nobody can beat him when it comes to that. Now take us to the place where I caught you Ranbouen! ExtremeSpeed!"

In a blur they took off like a rocket. Jiraiya could barely see them leave the Gym grounds they were moving so fast, "That's one of the fastest things I've ever seen." He muttered to himself before realizing that Janine was still there with him, "Wait, why didn't you go with them? You could have fit on the back too."

Raising an eyebrow at Jiraiya's question, Janine just stood there with her hands on her hips, "You don't want me to help you? I know you're way stronger than me and Naruto, but if Lt. Surge is here calling the shots and he isn't coming himself I'm pretty sure Team Rocket is going to bring the big guns. Especially to try and catch another Gym Leader like Blaine."

She had a point Jiraiya had to admit begrudgingly. It wasn't like he had backup in the form of the toads and that meant no Sage Mode either. He wasn't much for fighting with his Pokémon either as he barely knew what they could do.

Wait. She knew one of the names of the people in Team Rocket. A high ranking name because the man she spoke of was field directing.

"Why do you know anything about Team Rocket girl?" Jiraiya asked her, narrowing his eyes at her, "What did you two do while I was gone?"

"It was before you even showed up too really." That wasn't the right way to begin her answer. Wow, this guy was actually really intimidating when he put his mind to it. Janine balked a bit at the sight and decided to explain, "Uh, among other reasons why I'd know, Naruto and I have fought them before. Heh heh, he didn't tell you?"

Clearly he hadn't.

She was going to punch him in the stomach when he got back for forcing her to be subjected to Jiraiya's scary face. Who knew he even had one?

"Yeah… you're going to tell me everything you've got on these guys."

XxX

(With Naruto and Blaine – Cinnabar Island Streets)

An orange streak rushed through the empty streets of Cinnabar Island faster than the naked eye could keep up with. There was no one out there to see them, but that wasn't the point. The point was that Ranbouen was tearing ass through the town in record time.

Blaine held onto Naruto tightly, grateful that there was a wind shield for some reason around the front of the boy's Arcanine or else his hat and glasses would have flown off of his head. He was beginning to feel a little ill at the speed they were going at though.

Thank goodness the massive gates of the Pokémon Mansion came into sight soon thereafter.

"Up and over boy! You've got this!"

And indeed he did. Because in one spirited bound, Ranbouen hurled his entire body and those of both Naruto and Blaine as well straight over the brick wall surrounding the property to land on the other side. At that point Blaine felt as if vomiting wouldn't be too crass an action to take. It was the equivalent of the worst carnival ride ever created.

As he climbed off of his trusty first Pokémon, Naruto gave the imposing creature a hug around the neck for a job well done and got a lick to the face for his troubles. Turning away from Ranbouen he saw Blaine on his hands and knees on the ground panting for air, "Are you really a Gym Leader?"

Every Gym Leader he'd met thus far had been a physical specimen. Brock had been ripped even for an older teenager. Misty had been rather attractive in that bathing suit that she battled him in and she looked like she knew her way around a pool speed-wise. Lt. Surge was a juggernaut of a man with serious strength. Erika was beautiful and damnably accurate with her bow and arrow. And Sabrina had the reflexes and motions of a gymnast without even mentioning her psychic powers.

What made Blaine so special? That he was smart? How smart?

After hearing Naruto's question, Blaine stood back up and tried to save face, "Yes I'm really a Gym Leader. I'm just not at peak form right now for a serious reason. It's the reason I need my research so that I can find a solution to it. Can you help me?"

"Of course." Naruto said, calling Ranbouen back into his Poke Ball for the time being, "Let's go so we can get out of this place." Something about being stuck in the middle of an occupied island didn't sit well with him. Go figure.

The door wasn't really locked. As a matter of fact one was blown entirely off of the hinges and the other one was barely hanging on by one. Naruto hadn't noticed or cared the first time he had been close to Pokémon Mansion because the beaten up Growlithe outside of the gates dominated his attention the first time, but now that he was going inside it looked like a bombed out hovel. The place was obviously condemned, but was still standing, probably due to some outside influence.

"Kami, what happened to this place?" Naruto said aloud with a frown as he tried to peer into the rather dark building. The only light getting in came from the busted out windows funneling in the orange sunset.

From what he could see though, it was a grand old place with big pillars in the very first room that they entered into. The walls and pillars looked burned and damaged with chunks missing. Chandeliers were still hanging from the ceilings with absolutely no light coming from them, but he didn't trust those things at all. Knowing his luck if he walked under one it would drop down and kill him.

"A Pokémon that was created in the basement of this mansion broke free and destroyed the laboratory and the entire building in its ensuing escape." Blaine explained as he walked ahead, leading Naruto along with his cane tapping out a path in front of him, "Many people died that day, but it was our own foolishness that allowed it to happen. We should have never tried to play at God."

Creating a Pokémon?

Any interest that Naruto had in the topic at hand had to wait when the floor collapsed beneath them. Apparently the fire that had turned the mansion into a wreck wore the floor down to its bare bones and it was unable to support much weight any longer.

Blaine was able to use his question mark shaped cane to catch onto a support beam that kept him from taking the spill to the floor below. But Naruto's 'chandelier luck' held up here as well and he wound up taking the plunge. The advanced aged Gym Leader cringed as he heard the materials of the former first floor as well as the human boy that he was sure fell as well hitting the ground below.

The crackling sounds of debris dropping finally silenced enough for Blaine to make out a voice in the inky darkness of the basement floor, "…Ow." Naruto's voice echoed up.

"Are you alright child?" Blaine asked, not able to actually see Naruto's form. The basement had been built rather deeply underneath the mansion long after its initial construction due to the sensitivity of what they were studying, "Are you hurt?"

"Hell yes I'm hurt!" Naruto yelled back up as if it were painfully obvious before he actually focused on how high above him Blaine was. Blaine couldn't see him, but the opposite wasn't true. Naruto had a shadowy sight of the Cinnabar Gym Leader, "But I'm fine though. Man that's a long way down. Why'd you build a basement fifty feet under the house? That's a little far isn't it?"

Instead of answering again at first, Blaine pulled himself up with great effort onto the beams where he was safe to sit and assess the situation. The entire first floor was a big pit trap since the floor had collapsed, and he wasn't the more coordinated person in the world to walk along them. His body wasn't as spry and as durable as Naruto's seemed to be. A fifty foot fall to the basement below would cripple him or worse.

Well Naruto was already down there. If he could walk he could search for the research material just fine. That was going to have to work, "Listen, Naruto was it?" Blaine asked, trying to get his temporary comrade's name right, "I can't get down there from these beams. I'm going to need you to find and access the files down further in the basement."

"I thought you said everything got destroyed when this place burned up." Naruto said from down below as he could be heard shuffling around and getting back up to his feet.

"I said the lab and the building were destroyed." Blaine corrected with a sigh as he tapped his cane on the wood of the support beams, "The files were held securely in something not as easily disposed of." Not as easily disposed of? As a mansion? The place was a damn mansion! How would it be easier than anything to dispose of? Ugh, adults, "Can you see down there?"

"No… hold on." Naruto said before reaching into his backpack. He had packed tons of survival crap to use on the fly, well luckily he had a flare to draw upon, "Okay, I'm good now. Where exactly am I looking?"

Blaine pointed his cane toward the far end of the mansion, "The back end. The lab was located back there. I'm not certain of the condition you'll find it in though so be careful." Kind of redundant after nearly breaking his neck on the fall down there, but the good intention was still there, "The sooner you can find that accursed research the sooner we can leave this island."

XxX

(Outside Pokémon Mansion)

The entirety of the inside of the wall surrounding the mansion was surrounded by Team Rocket grunts with their Poke Balls at the ready for an order to attack to be given. The antsy look on their faces at their standing assignment made them seem quite nervous, and with good reason.

Inside of that mansion they would find the Gym Leader of Cinnabar Island and one of the two kids that were able to defeat Lt. Surge in direct combat. They were specially chosen for this task after a suspicious blur was sighted moving through the town, but that didn't make them feel any better.

Especially since it was Koga at the helm, standing atop the brick wall separating the mansion from the rest of the town.

Everyone remembered what happened to many of the unfortunate underlings to serve under him on the Seafoam Islands, even though nobody talked about it aloud. Hopefully the same thing wouldn't happen to them here.

Koga didn't seem to care about their unease. Those fools really thought that they were going to go into the mansion like fools and let their enemy know that they were onto their position? Not a chance. There was a much better option available. The data still existed if Blaine was inside. And if it survived a fire and the outright rampage of the 'strongest psychic Pokémon ever created' it could survive what was about to happen.

As long as the traitor and the enemy were destroyed it didn't matter. They were thorns in his master's side.

"Evolutionary hit squad ready!" Koga barked authoritatively, and in response the grunts let their Poke Balls fly. They were only meant to do one thing and one thing only, and it was the primary reason that they existed as a gathered group for the Cinnabar Island mission, "Fire at will!"

"Tauros! Hyper Beam!"

"Rhydon, Hyper Beam!"

"Golem, Machamp, Hyper Beam!"

"Ursaring, Hyper Beam!"

The similar calls echoed out as the fully evolved Pokémon of each person in the special unit began gathering pure life energy from their bodies in their mouths before firing all of it out directly at the mansion, punching devastating holes through the walls.

Koga's face was stern and unforgiving as he observed the scene, "Recharge and fire again. Bring the entire mansion down!"

And they did as he demanded. Shooting off their Hyper Beams, allowing their Pokémon to regather their strength from the extremely taxing attacks that left them completely immobile, and repeating the process until it started coming down by the foundations. This took a matter of two minutes to be completed.

Koga watched as the completely obliterated mansion lay still. The great pillars of the building were no longer standing. The formerly three story structure was now gone and the wreckage that used to comprise it remained in its place.

"There." The Team Rocket executive said, slightly satisfied but not completely, "That didn't kill them. But now at least we can excavate Blaine at our own convenience. They can't escape from there." Hopefully he was pinned underneath something crushing his body entirely. Same for Minato's brat. Actually, he hoped that the boy was instead impaled by something metallic. That would be a better fate for him, "If the research material survived Mewtwo it will survive that as well."

"How do you know that a whole building collapsing didn't kill them?" One of the hapless underlings asked, "It went down so fast."

Two minutes was not fast by his standards. Not at all. Thus his answer was simple as he walked away to head off to deal with the problem at the Gym personally, "…Because it wouldn't have killed me."

There was no such thing as overkill though.

Thus he was willing to make sure that there was no way Naruto and Blaine would be crawling out of that place without Team Rocket freeing them at all.

Pulling the short-wave radio from his belt, Koga quickly turned it on to speak to the distance support of the mission, "Surge, it's Koga. Send it in. Sheer Cold to ice over the entire mansion site. No one gets out of there without us. Over."

"_Heh, it's on the way now. That's so brutal though, even coming from me. You know that even when we thaw them out of it they'll never be right again right, even if it doesn't hit them directly? Over."_ The military man sounded impressed and amused at Koga's callous disregard for the lives inside of the mansion's ruins.

"Neither of them are going to be alive much longer to begin with." They only needed Blaine, and that was just in case his research was too difficult to decipher on their own. Naruto on the other hand could just die. He was just an enemy. After they were through with Blaine they would kill him no matter what then, so who cared what kind of condition either of them were in, "At least they can say that they fell to legends when they find themselves in hell. Over."

"_E.T.A. ten seconds. Over."_

"Clear the area! Koga barked loudly at the Team Rocket underlings, "If you're caught directly in this attack you _will _be killed, and there will be nothing anyone can do to save you!" He then let everyone to scramble away on their own with a simple move of vanishing from his standing spot in a smokescreen. Anyone that died there clearly was not strong enough.

With a sky-tearing caw, Articuno descended from clouds and landed right in the midst of the Pokémon Mansion remnants with an angered look on its face. Its collar glowed red and it let out another loud caw before a light blue icy mist extended from its body before shooting outward suddenly with a low booming noise emitting from it.

Everything caught in the sudden push of sub-zero energy flash froze solidly as if there had been a thick sheet of ice building over everything frozen for months instead of in a matter of one second.

It's assigned job done, Articuno's collar glowed red once more, seemingly harming it before it took off into the skies once more from whence it came, set to head to its next target.

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Jiraiya and Janine – Cinnabar Gym Grounds)

"Doton: Yomi Numa (Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld)!"

A large number of Team Rocket members and unfortunate ground-based Pokémon found themselves trapped inside of an inescapable swamp that just suddenly appeared on the ground beneath them. The yells and cries of the trapped members fell on deaf ears as they began getting sucked in past their heads underneath. Unfortunate? Yes, but this wasn't any kind of game. They had already firmly established that.

"Where are they all coming from?" Janine asked, staying behind Jiraiya as he watched him seemingly run the gauntlet on his own. He really didn't need her help after all, "I got a headcount of thirty guys so far, not even counting the Pokémon!" Her eyes scanned up and widened, "Look out!"

Both she and Jiraiya jumped away as a growing shadow appeared above them. A large Graveler hit the ground where they had been standing right before glowing pure white and exploding in a massive blast.

Even though he was fast enough to dodge and escape the blast radius, Jiraiya cringed as he didn't peg Janine for being quick enough to evade such a thing. That wasn't good. He wasn't trying to get a kid killed today.

However the smoke cleared and the sight of a pinkish cocoon-like Pokémon that seemed to have steel plating as its shell. It was scuffed up quite a bit but otherwise seemed fine.

"Shoot those stupid Fearow out of the sky Forretress! Flash Cannon!"

The four turret-looking appendages on the sides of Forretress began to glow silver before shooting up at the two large bird Pokémon circling overhead that had dropped the suicide Graveler to begin with. The beams combined into two separate attacks and indeed made contact, clipping the wings of the aerial enemies and taking them down.

Jiraiya had to whistle at the skillful aim and noted that the soot covered Janine had by then climbed to sit calmly atop her defensive force of a Pokémon with a very displeased look on her face at almost getting blown to smithereens.

Well she could clearly take care of herself. Even though this was the first he was seeing of it that should have been obvious. Anyone that could stand hanging around Naruto so much had to be a little adept at getting the job done, "Angry much?" Jiraiya asked as he made his way over to the young kunoichi and her Pokémon, "What happened to you? It was like a switch just flipped."

A small blush sprang to her face at Jiraiya noticing her sudden rage streak that seemingly came from nowhere, "…I don't like sudden loud noises. If you make a sound that means you're dead… that's how I was taught and it took a long time not to take it so literally." Especially with how harshly Koga trained her as a child, "Big explosions close to me that come out of nowhere freak me out." Thank goodness for Forretress and Protect, "You Konoha ninjas are afraid of ghosts, well I'm not too fond of things that blow up."

"I'm not afraid of ghosts." Jiraiya deadpanned in return as he turned away from her haughtily, "…I just hold a healthy trepidation of them and their curses. Who wants to be haunted forever, and by something that you can't even punch to make go away?"

Yeah, he definitely had a hand in training Naruto. That much was clearly evident by this point in time.

As they both looked out on the landscape of the open volcanic area they noted that nothing else was coming their way any longer. A few lucky ones that were still alive had been stopped short of the large swamp that grimly probably held more than its fill of living creatures within, both human and Pokémon.

It was very still and quiet. So was that all?

"Is it over? Just around thirty guys?" Janine asked skeptically, "I don't know about you, but I expected something more you know? I mean, they're openly occupying this city. Don't they need more kick for something like that? I don't know."

"No, no, you're right." Jiraiya said with a serious look on his face and a lively sense of paranoia poking and prodding at his psyche, "This isn't even close to all of them. I counted four times this number when I was just moving through town trying to find Blaine."

So what the hell? Occupying the town had to only be for what they wanted from the aforementioned man, and they had cleared the streets of regular people. Even if they had found Naruto and Blaine, that just meant that they could focus more attention over to the issue taking place at the Gym as well since the manpower needed to keep watch over the escape points of the island were no longer needed.

If it was Jiraiya he'd definitely bring out the big guns and crush whomever it was making things difficult. But that was just him.

It was way too quiet for either of them to feel safe, and Janine decided that they needed a quick scouting run to help them out, "Go Golbat! Give us an eye in the sky and see if there's anyone around!" From her Poke Ball came her large bat of a Pokémon that flew up to do as its master asked.

While Golbat scanned the area, Jiraiya started thinking about their next move once Naruto and Blaine returned. Once they got out to the water he could use a Pokémon that he had managed to capture on the way to Cinnabar Island to ferry Blaine away, and maybe the kids if he needed to. But then again Naruto had that Cloyster of his to utilize in a similar manner.

A sudden tornado of fire formed in midair, surrounding Janine's Golbat and burning it heavily until it fell from the sky. A surprise attack? From where? The sky as well?

As a panicked Janine recalled her heavily injured Pokémon, Jiraiya quickly began scanning the sky until he saw what he deemed as the source of the stealth fire attack. A gigantic light yellow bird with a long straight beak and raw flames forming the crest on its head and plumage. With every flap of its wings it dropped fire from the sky. Not exactly subtle, but where the hell did it even come from?

'How did I not feel the presence of something that strong?' Jiraiya thought in a bit of a panic. Now that he had eyes on it, it was clear that this was not a creature to be trifled with. It was as if its mere presence and simply looking upon it forced the one doing so to heat up, 'I'm not nearly that unattentive!'

"_How do you like Team Rocket's first addition to our collection of Kanto's three legendary birds?"_ A taunting female voice said inside of Jiraiya's head, _"Jiraiya was your name wasn't it? Well I've heard that you've had a run-in with Articuno back when Koga and our men managed to capture it. Meet Moltres."_

Moltres. A legendary bird like the Articuno? Oh, that wasn't good at all.

Janine could only stare up into the sky at the being that had been deemed as a mere myth by many people, "Moltres… I'm seeing a Moltres. Aya-obasan is never going to believe this." The fear from watching her Golbat get annihilated in one move then slowly sat in and she realized that the awe-inspiring bird in the sky was their enemy. And against such a thing she was at a grave disadvantage, "Oh no."

She instantly recalled Forretress. He would do her no good. Even if it hadn't been legendary, or a fire-element Pokémon, flying types by themselves held an advantage over most of the Pokémon that she had in her possession.

She barely even noticed that her legs were shaking, and she didn't register that anything was happening until Jiraiya had picked her up, tucking her underneath one arm as he hightailed it out of the way of a streaking divebomb Flamethrower attack that came just short of sending fire licking at his backside.

"_There's no way out for you~." _ Sabrina's voice taunted in a sing-song manner as they headed for the nearest shelter of the Gym, _"Not today you won't. Moltres, __Agility__. Cut them off."_

Moltres seemingly disappeared in a blur before reappearing directly between Jiraiya and the Gym building, flapping its wings as it hovered just over the ground, glaring at the ninja pair as it guarded them from going further forward, a challenging look in its eyes.

"_Flamethrower__!"_

From the closer position that they now had, Jiraiya noticed a very unnatural collar around the neck of Moltres that seemed to flash a red color when Sabrina issued her mental order to it. He hadn't even had the time to come to terms with the fact that he was dealing with someone that could speak to others telepathically due to the inherent danger in front of him.

There was no time to analyze the collar though, as he had to move fast when Moltres inhaled to fire its flames at Jiraiya and Janine. Unceremoniously dropping Janine to the ground, Jiraiya quickly pulled out and unfurled a scroll with a strange set of arrays, centered around a particular kanji in the middle of the parchment, "Fuuka Houin (Fire Sealing Method)!"

The large amount of flames that billowed from Moltres found a home inside of the confines of Jiraiya's sealing array, sucking them all in like a vacuum until the exhalation ended and the flames subsided.

Of the blaze that had been covering Jiraiya and Janine from view there was nothing there except the scroll on the ground and an explosive tag next to it that was burning down ominously. The curious Moltres could only wonder what had become of its quarry until a big explosion detonated right in front of it.

With a mighty cry it thrust itself backwards out of the blast cloud with its mighty wings, somewhat surprised and slightly injured at the unexpected attack. It shook itself off mightily, sending flames flickering all over from its bodily movements.

Jiraiya was already halfway up the volcano near the Gym by that time.

"Why are we going up the active volcano?" Janine said, being dragged along by her collar by Jiraiya. Damn it if Golbat were still able to fight she could have just used him to fly up, but Venomoth wasn't strong enough to hold her up and fly as well. As she was she was merely a burden, "Nothing about this seems like a good idea."

"It is if we want to take out whoever is controlling that gigantic firebird of death." Jiraiya said, eyes straight upward at the summit, "There's only one place anywhere around here to have a good view of the entire Gym grounds to coordinate that thing's actions."

And of course it would be up around the rim of Cinnabar Island's most noticeable landmark.

A caw from below directed their attention to the fact that Moltres was also on the move, flying up past them quickly up over the top of the volcano. Not to be overtaken so abruptly, Jiraiya reached the top and jumped onto the summit, his geta sandals smashing the rock that he landed on, "Hello." Jiraiya said to the lone human being standing up there with him and Janine, "Nice to finally meet the voice in my head."

"The feeling is mutual." Sabrina said, standing with a humanoid Pokémon at her side with pink cheeks, thick fingers, and horns that looked like hair on the sides of its head. It looked alarmingly similar to a mime, "I should have prepared for you to find me accordingly. After all, Koga told me that you were a ninja comparable to one that destroyed him in his youth."

Even if she could read his mind and his moves, that didn't mean she knew how to avoid anything that he could do. Jiraiya was a completely different breed of animal from the kid that she had fought down in Celadon's Rocket Game Corner. There were things that he could do that she just couldn't avoid and she knew it, 'Even with Mr. Mime here running my defenses.'

Luckily she still had Moltres in the vicinity and it would be back on the attack soon enough.

"Mister Jiraiya!" Janine shouted in warning, but Jiraiya knew it was coming and he was ready for fighting it again.

He wished so dearly that he had the toads with him. Not just because of the summoning by itself, but because if he used Sage Mode this would have been so much easier. Resorting to that 'ugly' form would have been preferable to risking being barbecued by huge bird, just in case that kind of thing was a risk.

It didn't matter at this point. A fight was in front of him, and he would handle it accordingly. Powerful firebird or not he was the best equipped to handle it, "Do you think you can take on the girl? She's the one issuing the Moltres orders with her mind."

"I can try."

"No, it's either do or don't girl. There is no 'try' here."

And that was the last thing Jiraiya said to her before taking off to do battle with the Moltres.

At first Janine was a touch concerned with what was asked of her. She knew that Sabrina was a psychic Pokémon trainer. As a poison Pokémon trainer herself she was at a marked disadvantage against her. But with her attention split between commanding Moltres and fighting her effectiveness at each of those things would be halved.

Besides, Naruto's badass teacher was giving her a responsibility. That had to count for something.

While Jiraiya diverted the attention of Moltres, leading it away from anywhere near Janine and Sabrina atop the volcano, the kunoichi took a deep breath and from one of her Poke Balls called out her Grimer that she wore over her back and arms like a loose jacket, "Okay, well it looks like I'm fighting you."

What was she going to do, not fight? In comparison, Jiraiya had the far more intimidating task, but he wasn't just doing it, he was thriving, dodging swooping Flamethrower attacks as he continued to find a decent place to fight or locate an opening. So in exchange for that, the least Janine could do in return was fight against Sabrina. What was a type advantage anyway? It didn't mean that she'd definitely lose, it just meant that it would be way more difficult to win.

This did nothing to discourage Sabrina who merely chuckled in return. A more favorable battle couldn't have been handed over to her on a silver platter, "You might want to take yourself to the beach and play in the water like the kid you are. Just because I work with your daddy doesn't mean I won't hurl you straight into that volcano in a heartbeat honey."

This wasn't Jiraiya, this was just Koga's little daughter. Not only was she _extremely_ beatable in comparison, but that went even without taking into account that it would be psychic Pokémon against poison Pokémon.

Okay, well whatever trepidation the child of the Fuchsia City Gym Leader had towards fighting was now replaced with anger at being overlooked so casually, "Don't think that your little canary flying around the battlefield is going to keep me from kicking your ass." Janine said in a bit of a catty reply before hurling some of the shuriken she had in her supply directly at Sabrina.

They didn't hit though. Not because Sabrina was able to dodge them even though she could have, but because they simply bounced off of an invisible wall in the air, "Sorry, but Moltres isn't the only reason you aren't going to touch me." She gestured to the Mr. Mime standing guard in front of her, "A brat like you… you aren't smart enough to figure a way around Mr. Mime's barriers."

XxX

(Pokémon Lab)

In the vacant laboratory so many smaller lab items like beakers and papers littered the floors freely, along with files and journals of all sorts. The scene was the same in rooms all over as Team Rocket had long since dispersed and left the damage that they had wrought, taking the traitorous scientists that they had formerly employed with them.

Underneath the floor in the main room of the lab, a harsh bumping noise kept sounding out as if someone was swinging a sledgehammer. Thump after thump until finally the tile smashed through and from the floor emerged Naruto's Hitmonlee, landing on the floor in a satisfied flourish.

Not too long after, a grimy Naruto with literally frosted tips walked up through a staircase underground as well as a Rhydon carrying a similarly ragged Blaine hoisted up over its shoulders in a fireman's carry.

"Good work Fuki." Naruto said, shooting a glance at the now destroyed storm doors that separated the escape tunnel from the lab floor. Yes, he had his Hitmonlee help him kick it wide open. If you have the resources you use them, "You seriously built an escape route from the mansion to the lab?"

Blaine let out a groan of pain and clutched at his newly injured left leg as his large rhino of a Pokémon set him down in a chair nearby, "Even back when we were doing our research there was a chance that enemies of Team Rocket would discover the location of our work and attack the mansion. You can't say it wasn't useful here."

That it was. But Blaine had injured his leg badly in his fall from the support pillars of the basement when the Hyper Beams had been tearing through the building. In the ensuing panic, Naruto and Blaine's Rhydon had to unearth the entrance to the escape tunnel and get them through it before anything worse happened. Luckily he was able to shut the door behind them before Articuno showed up and turned the place into the North Pole.

Both of them saw the majestic creature from above through the hole in the basement and marveled at it for about ten seconds before they realized that it was trying to kill them.

Of course Blaine had then filled Naruto in on just what incredible thing they had borne witness to all the way through the tunnel across the island. Kind of ironic that a legendary ice Pokémon showed up to eradicate a fire Pokémon Gym Leader.

"Can you ride Ranbouen?" Naruto asked Blaine who was busy trying to gather nearby materials for a splint, "This place is already trashed, and we need to get back to Ero-sennin and Janine so we can leave."

Not choosing to answer Naruto's question, Blaine repressed his pain from his injury and avoided the topic altogether, "You've got the research then?"

Blinking in surprise, Naruto's face took on a sheepish look as he took his backpack off and emptied one of the smaller pockets out onto the ground. A few small rations bars fell out, a small bag of emergency soldier pills, a scroll and some cluttered junk that he thought might be useful spilled out as well. Picking up the scroll, Naruto quickly unsealed a right many files in manila folders and held them up in front of him, "I didn't know what exactly to take and it was too dark to even try to read, so I took it all."

"No, that's fine." Blaine said, using his cane and his Rhydon to steady himself and get back up to hobble over to Naruto, "You've done me a great service today my boy, but what about your friends. That Articuno… if they were to act as a distraction, and we're thought to be a non-issue its attention will be turned to them next."

Naruto at first wanted to argue that no matter what, Jiraiya could handle it. But common sense told him that even as strong as he was, Jiraiya couldn't sprout wings and fly. That bird froze the entirety of the mansion foundation in one move.

So what could he do against an enemy that had no cover or way to escape? The grounds that the Gym sat on had no discernable cover to speak of, and even someone like Naruto knew the value of attacking from above, not even counting the fact that when it came to flying Pokémon Articuno would outclass almost all of them.

"But what would me showing up change?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow as he started gathering up the things that he had spilled out of his bag, "You saw that thing. Even if I was tough enough to take it down I can't reach it. How would I even beat it?"

"You don't have to beat it." Blaine said as he observed Naruto's actions, "Team Rocket cannot control the power of the legendaries on their own. They possess the Gym Leader original copies of the Badges, but theirs are not strong enough to enact the sole control that they desire. Merely capturing one in a Poke Ball would not be enough. The moment it sufficiently recovered it would escape in a rage. So I had to… engineer a shortcut for them."

"A shortcut?" Naruto asked, stopping what he was doing to raise an eyebrow up at the man, "What kind of shortcut?"

Blaine pointed to around his neck, "It was just after Mewtwo's escape, before I realized what I was doing and truly endeavored to work against Team Rocket. I originally designed a collar meant to forcibly establish obedience in Pokémon that did not acknowledge their trainers as superior, such as Mewtwo. I presented them with a prototype but I never made more before leaving. They must have recreated their own."

"So…"

"So all you have to do is damage the collars enough to deactivate them. Something that should be far easier than trying to defeat the Articuno outright."

It did seem easier. Way easier. It wasn't as if the Articuno was going to protect the thing around its neck that was enslaving it. Okay, so that solved one problem, but therein lay another one. One more serious.

"Okay I get that… but tell me how the hell I'm supposed to fight it!" Naruto shouted in a deafening voice. And with good reason. Everyone was talking about taking Articuno down or freeing it. Well how exactly was he supposed to do that with his feet planted firmly on the ground? His Pokémon really didn't have that much range with their distance attacks either.

Shaking his head at the young man's impatience, Blaine kneeled down and picked up something that Naruto hadn't even noticed had been in that pocket of his bag, "With this." He said, holding up a shiny, yellow rock-looking object, "Do you know what this is?"

It took Naruto a few seconds to rewind through the events in his mind to dredge up where it originally came from. At that point he couldn't have jumped away from it with any more force if he had Fukigenko's legs, "I didn't take that! Janine did it and by the time I realized that she had it on her we were too far gone to take it back!"

"I don't care where you got it or how you obtained it." Blaine snapped impatiently at the paranoid child, having his Rhydon assist him out of the room into another one, "All that matters is that you have it now, and if I'm correct we can use it!"

A confused Naruto merely ambled out of the room following the injured scientist, ornery Hitmonlee in tow. Speaking of which, Fukigenko seemed to be scratching his head just the same as Naruto, "I don't know what he's talking about either Fuki. It's just a fossil. I don't see what the big deal about it is."

When he entered the next room and saw Blaine puttering around with a massive machine he still didn't know what was going on, but as it fired up and shot electricity directly at Naruto's fossil that had been placed inside of it Naruto would have been lying if he said that he wasn't a touch excited.

Blaine noticed Naruto standing behind him with an awe-stricken face at the huge machine and smirked, "In just a matter of minutes prepare to meet a Pokémon that went extinct millions of years ago."

All Naruto could do was sit down on the floor, joined by his uncharacteristically patient Hitmonlee that did the same cross-legged, "…I don't know what this is…" Naruto said, wiping the dusty mansion debris from his cheeks, "…But I'm excited to be a part of it."

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Konoha 12: Cinnabar Island<span>

"I don't get it." Raido said as he sat on the beach clad in swimming trunks with Genma who was lazily tanning on a towel, senbon sticking out of his mouth as always, "I mean, why build a settlement here? There's nothing here. Nothing here worth centering commerce around."

Genma let out a sigh with his eyes shut at his impatient, slightly older teammate, "This place is a go between for traders in Kanto genius. The entire reason this place exists is for sailors hauling goods on their ships around the continent to rest." Of course it didn't hurt that the place was downright beautiful as well, "This is probably a pretty sweet vacation spot too."

"Well check out the big brains on Genma." Raido said, looking around at all of the girls in bikinis, "What, did you read the introductory pamphlet from the tourist stand when we got off of the ship?" His inattentiveness came back to bite him when he was then hit in the head by a pamphlet that Genma had thrown at him to reveal that this was indeed what he had done, "You suck."

"You suck." Genma replied before opening his eyes and looking around, "Is he still out in the water surfing? I really don't see what the big deal is."

"Guys get a picture of this! Kushina won't think I'm flaky when I show her _this_!"

Both of Minato's present underlings looked at each other dryly, thinking the exact same thing that they then voiced aloud, "No she won't!" They both yelled out to him before Raido went for the kill, "We can all do that! You're probably using your chakra to cheat and stick to the board!"

"…So?"

It was a well-deserved break as everyone had been working their tails off to get everything together for the return voyage to the Elemental Nations. Everyone had chosen their own way to take a rest for the time being, and Minato, Genma, and Raido decided to head to the place away from the mainland where they had never been before; Cinnabar Island.

And so far it was pretty relaxing. No scrounging around doing any mission they could for money, no hauling supplies around to Pallet Town and the awaiting ships docked there. All of those things were great, but the best thing of all was that there was absolutely nothing around trying to kill them.

"Hey, what the hell is this thing!?"

Both Raido and Genma sat up to see Minato off of his board and in the water, being strangled by an angry-looking gigantic jellyfish of a Pokémon with multiple tentacles holding him in place. In order to save himself he Hiraishined back to shore, but that didn't really stop the Pokémon from continuing to choke the life out of him as all it did was just teleport it onto the beach along with him.

With a dull look on his face, Raido just watched it all happen, "And that's why surfing is for chumps and Kiri ninjas."

"Indeed buddy." Genma said, flipping through a small field guide that Professor Oak had printed out for their informative benefit until he found something that resembled what was going after Minato, "Here we go. Tentacruel. Uh oh, those tentacles are supposed to be poisonous. This one could actually kill him."

Raido clicked his teeth and stood up, prepared to fight with a gigantic jellyfish until he heard the pop of a Poke Ball and saw Genma hurl his Voltorb directly at it and Minato, "Spark!" On command, Genma's Voltorb unleashed volts and volts of electricity, shocking the Tentacruel off of Minato. With another throw of a second Poke Ball, Genma had trapped the Tentacruel and had captured a second Pokémon for himself, "You see that? That's called taking the command of the situation."

It could be said that Genma was really getting on with the local custom of obtaining Pokémon.

"Oh, that hurt so much." Minato said, excruciating pain wracking his body in every place where he had been grabbed by the Tentacruel. He couldn't even move due to the poison stunting his movements, "Genma was right. This entire continent is like the Forest of Death."

Walking over to his victorious Voltorb, Genma picked it up and rubbed it against his hair to static it all out jokingly, "Man these things are awesome! So how about it Minato-senpai? I just saved your ass from being stung to death by a killer jellyfish. That deserves a field promotion doesn't it?"

In the sands, Minato lay unmoving with his body still twitching every now and then from the electricity that had just coursed through him, courtesy of Genma's Voltorb, "Normally I'd say yes. But in this case no… because you shocked me too." A dejected Genma lowered the Voltorb from over his head in defeat.

As he continued to stand over his superior, Raido just shook Minato's body with his foot, "And now you know what it feels like." He felt while tracing the burn scar across his face.

"Someone get me an Antidote already or I'll get my Beedrill to poison you bastards too!"

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Arcanine): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire), ExtremeSpeed (Normal), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Electric).

Hogohei (Cloyster): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal), Spike Cannon (Normal), Surf (Water).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting), Revenge (Fighting), Substitute (Normal), Hi Jump Kick, Blaze Kick (Fire).

Sazakumoru (Cubone): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock), Swords Dance (Normal), Thrash (Normal), Earthquake (Ground).

Shujinken (Misdreavus): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Double Team (Normal), Shadow Ball (Ghost), Pain Split (Normal), Thunderbolt (Electric).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug), Flash (Normal), Sucker Punch (Dark), Agility (Normal), Poison Jab (Poison).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison), Sludge Bomb (Poison), Screech (Normal), Flamethrower (Fire), Hidden Power (Normal), Strength (Normal).

Golbat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying), Wing Attack (Flying), Aerial Ace (Flying), Double Team (Normal), Haze (Ice), Venoshock (Poison).

Venomoth: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal), Silver Wind (Bug), Gust (Flying), Poison Fang (Poison).

Forretress: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Protect (Normal), Selfdestruct (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Take Down (Normal), Gyro Ball (Steel), Bide (Normal), Mirror Shot (Steel), Iron Defense (Steel), Flash Cannon (Steel).

Jiraiya's Current Pokémon Team

Jynx: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Lovely Kiss (Normal), Powder Snow (Ice), DoubleSlap (Normal), Ice Punch (Ice), Heart Stamp (Psychic), Avalanche (Ice), Wake-Up Slap (Fighting), Body Slam (Normal).

Lapras: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Sing (Normal), Water Gun (Water), Surf (Water), Mist (Ice), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Water Pulse (Water), Body Slam (Normal), Rain Dance (Water), Ice Beam (Ice).

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter complete. And I think I broke my hand again. I can't tell yet. Either way I don't have insurance so even if it is broken some homemade medicine is going to have to do. That's I've got this time. I hope you dug it, so until the next installment, later.<strong>

**Amongst other things I need to do by Monday morning I've got a script to write out for my first TV production project of the semester. Bad times are coming everybody.  
><strong>

**Kenchi out.**


	14. The Omega Effect

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. Seriously, are they even trying anymore? What other kinds of mutant animals and humanoids can they make? How many of them are they? I stopped counting the number of Pokemon after I was done playing Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald because I never picked up another one.

Satoshi Tajiri is seriously laughing all the way to the bank and has been since 1996. Goddamn, that's a long time to build a fortune off of one thing. Good work dude.

**Chapter 14: The Omega Effect**

* * *

><p>Take Naruto away to Kanto. A fake mission to fool him into his training trip that he was fighting against going on. That was just what the doctor ordered… literally, because Tsunade was a doctor.<p>

Yes… it was a good idea in theory. A safe place. Somewhere that the Akatsuki couldn't keep an eye on them and scout out an opening to kidnap Naruto. A place where they didn't even know where it was. Where only a select few people still alive from the last great war even knew existed in the world, and they were all Konoha-born.

A safe place with settlements of various sizes sprinkled throughout a diverse and lush natural countryside with abundant, virile wildlife and resourceful people.

…Safe…

Yes, because when Jiraiya thought of safe, he thought of mammoth flying birds that spat fire like they were merely breathing air and flew faster than a high-level ninja could match.

If Minato were still alive he would have punched him directly in the sack, because his journal entries and his own eyewitness accounts either didn't get this dangerous or he sorely downplayed just how threatening the Pokémon Continent really was. Most of this stuff was just absurd, even for him.

"Moltres…" Jiraiya said to himself, eyes to the sky as the grand bird flew around looking for a weak spot against him, "…This is definitely going in the next book somehow."

On the plus side, if he could kick this thing's ass he would be able to include yet another notch in his belt as an awesome human being. Neither of his two Pokémon were strong enough to battle against it, and he wasn't good enough with them yet to try it. That was just fine too. He didn't need to make a handicap for himself to try and obtain a nonexistent numbers advantage.

Right, so it was time to get a bit creative.

"I wish someone was here to see this." Jiraiya said before breaking out into a run, triggering Moltres' instinct to attack him since he made the first move. From a supply pouch, Jiraiya pulled out a smoke bomb that he dropped on the ground to cover him.

Moltres swept right through it, trying to reap Jiraiya's head off with its wing only to blow the smoke away to reveal that Jiraiya was now gone. The confused avian flew low around the scene, wondering just what in the world happened to its target.

"Ranjishigami no Jutsu (Wild Lion's Mane Jutsu)!"

A large bundle of hair shot out at Moltres in the shape of the mouth that then split apart into multiple tendrils to make it unavoidable. Catching the bird unaware, it landed a direct hit and tangled the bird up in a hapless mess that took it down from the sky and sent it crash-landing onto the ground.

Holding the snake seal, Jiraiya smirked in satisfaction of his binding of Moltres. It was unaware of the extent of his ninja abilities, probably only seeing him as a normal human even after all he had done before then. Using an earth ninjutsu to escape its view it left Moltres wide open to a retaliatory attack in return.

Now what was he going to do to finish it? That was a bit of a quandary.

With an adjustment of his hand-seal, Jiraiya hardened the ends of his hair follicles, stabbing into Moltres in every place that Jiraiya had managed to bind it. It let out a caw of pain before shooting fire from its mouth and burning the hair holding it from a distance.

Jiraiya had to let his jutsu go or he'd have wound up burnt as well. When he did so, Moltres immediately threw itself into the mouth of the volcano without delay, much to Jiraiya's abject shock. He knew it was a firebird, but if it was doing what he thought it was doing this entire thing just reached a whole different level of ridiculousness.

The only thing going through his mind as this occurred was, 'Please be committing suicide for the sake of your pride.' But of course anyone that had fought as many battles as him would know that there was absolutely no chance of this. Guys like him were simply never that lucky.

And he was unfortunately proven correct when from the lava burst Moltres, body fully healed from the injuries that Jiraiya had managed to deal it. So that was why it didn't show the markings from being blown up in an explosive tag from earlier when it reappeared at the volcano summit? What the hell was he supposed to do to bring that thing down if it could heal itself inside of a volcano?

"Goddamn it!" Jiraiya shouted seemingly to the heavens as he fought the urge to tear his hair out by the roots, "I hate this goddamn place!" Whatever happened to the peaceful place away from the strife of the Elemental Nations that he thought this place would be when he was on the cruise ship before Naruto found him the first time? Even Cinnabar Island, the paradise in the sun with all of the lovely ladies in bathing suits was a dangerous place, "Minato you suck!"

This was all Minato's fault. The way he wrote his report on the place, it seemed great. A place with no war, mostly friendly people, and weird creatures that freely populated the lands… yeah, he really left some stuff out.

Over the sound of his yell, Moltres began to glow silver and let out an audible caw that seemed to prompt rocks comprising pieces of the volcano to rise up by some unseen force all around Jiraiya on most of their side of the battlefield.

Knowing that he was in serious danger, Jiraiya's eyes hardened on the dangerous aerial Pokémon as rocks seemed to float all around him while he made hand-seals. There was no path to escape, but that was just okay, "Hari Jizo (Needle Jizo)!" His hair lengthened to cover his entire body and hardened like steel in an armor-like shroud that protected every part of him as the rocks attempted to slam against and batter him about, 'Alright, the bird can heal itself inside of the volcano, it stays far away enough that I can't slam a Rasengan into its beak, and it's got both of my best elements at its beck and call.'

And to think, he'd been considering getting a vacation home there.

But if that stupid bird thought that just because it could restore itself and that flying enabled it to evade many of his stronger attacks the battle was close to over it was going to be in for a rude awakening.

XxX

(With Naruto – Pokémon Lab)

For nearly thirty minutes, Naruto sat on the floor with his hands to his ears to try and block out the deafening noise of the large machine that Blaine was using to do… something to the fossil that he had found amongst Naruto's belongings. Whatever he was doing, Naruto just hoped that it would finish soon, because his head was ringing.

"Is this going to take any longer?" Naruto asked aloud, trying to shout over the loud whirring sound of the machine, "I could have left back when we first got here and made it back to the Gym by now!"

"And done what?" Blaine snapped in return as he had his Rhydon carry him over to Naruto to tap him on his head a few times with his cane. Naruto made the mistake of trying to punch the Rhydon to get him to drop the fire Pokémon Gym Leader, but failed as its hide was as hard as rock, "Your most mobile Pokémon in your Arcanine is still woefully underequipped to do battle with an Articuno, fire type advantage or not."

So what the hell was sitting around in a lab going to do to solve that problem?

Who knew what kind of trouble Jiraiya and Janine were in? Ero-sennin was the man, plain and simple, but that damn Articuno was just a special kind of powerful that they hadn't anticipated having to deal with on their own.

And who knew what else?

"What do you want me to do then?" Naruto said as he jumped up off of the ground and tried to get into Blaine's face as best he could while the man was being held by his massive Rhydon, "Team Rocket are running all over the place looking for _you_! Trying to get the information that I gave to _you_! Ero-sennin came here to get _you_ out!"

Just what did he think he felt like right then, hiding in a lab while his sensei and his friend were out there buying them time? Had it not been for Blaine's need to procure his own research on Mewtwo, they would have been long gone by then and never would have needed to split up. Cinnabar Island probably would have just been a dot on the horizon.

"I know." Blaine stated softly, understanding the severity of the situation better than Naruto perceived that he did, "Believe me my boy, I am well aware of this. I never wanted anyone else involved. Not my staff, not you and your teacher, no one. This was to be my own cross to bear."

At that moment the fossil machine grew even louder and electricity crackled off of it dangerously as it started to shake and rattle against the wall and the floor. A final pulsing noise sounded out before the entire thing fell silent and smoke billowed out of a closed panel on the front. Sliding open like a door, the panel sent smoke out that filled the entire room and concealed everyone's vision.

As Naruto and Blaine both coughed and tried to wave the smoke away, a primordial screech made itself known that got Naruto to stop in its tracks, "What was that?"

A smirk came to Blaine's face as his Pokémon led the way through the smoke to the machine where they could get a better look at what was within, "Remember what I told you about reviving a prehistoric Pokémon from your fossil? Well meet the product of that process. You won't be an earthbound target any longer."

A creature the size of Blaine's Rhydon with a gray, oval-shaped body leading down to its two legs and long thick tail with a triangular tip, two three-fingered arms with light purple wings that stretched out underneath, a long face and a mouth with razor-sharp teeth reminiscent of those found on a saw. This was a pretty intimidating Pokémon.

Naruto just stared at the recently awoken and confused Pokémon until he slowly pulled out his Pokédex. If ever there was a time where he needed the reference tool, now was it, _""Aerodactyl; the Fossil Pokémon._ _This now extinct, ferocious Pokémon is said to have flown in ancient skies while shrieking high-pitched cries. With its sharp fangs it is very vicious."_

"He belongs to you now." A very pleased Blaine said to the awe-stricken Naruto as he stuck a Poke Ball that had been attached to the machine in his hand, "You presented the base DNA material for the restoration, thus he is now your responsibility. Congratulations. You own a piece of world history."

Naruto wanted to get closer, but his track record with odd and exotic animals told him that it wasn't such a good idea, "A part of me wants to run up to him and try to fly him, but the other part is saying that he'll probably try to eat me. Didn't the Pokédex say this guy is vicious?"

"To enemies." Blaine reasoned with a flippant hand gesture as he threw a small badge shaped like a flame Naruto's way, "True enough, if he doesn't respect your strength he'll probably turn on you, but that shouldn't be a problem for you right?"

The mystical properties over Pokémon that the materials that each particular closely protected badge was made from didn't hurt either just in case, hence why giving Naruto the Volcano Badge wasn't a bad idea at all in this instance. Naruto was aware of this and could actually feel a presence from them. That made five for him that he now had directly on his person, and the aura that this added to his own for Pokémon proved he wasn't just some pretender when it came to strength.

Still, that wasn't very reassuring at all as he stared at the probably carnivorous dinosaur of a Pokémon that was in the same room as him. With those teeth? Yeah, definitely carnivorous.

Outstanding.

Taking the choice out of Naruto's hands, the Aerodactyl stomped out of the machine and over to the youngster holding his Poke Ball. He momentarily lorded over Naruto before leaning down and sniffing his head for a few moments. Naruto held as fierce a gaze as he could muster with the butterflies in his stomach as the dinosaur of a Pokémon seemed to be appraising him.

Eventually he stood back up straight over Naruto and spread his wings while letting out a triumphant screech that got Naruto to cringe at the sheer volume. He then almost knocked Naruto down when he shoved his head against his entire body in something of an affectionate gesture, "Wha-?" Naruto asked confusedly, "He likes me?"

That was strange. Most things tended to try and beat on him before he won them over somehow.

"I told you so." Blaine said with a wry smile, "Now go take him and retrieve the ninja girl and Mister Jiraiya. I'll remain here until you return, gathering the appropriate research you brought me to carry with us during our departure. I'm afraid in my current injured state I would be more of a hindrance than a help in this regard."

"Okay, if you say so…" An unsure Naruto replied, watching Blaine as he took another rest sitting on a nearby stool, "I'll grab Ero-sennin and Janine, and I'll be right back, so get ready to leave fast!" Naruto said before gesturing to his Aerodactyl to follow him, "Come on Kamisori (Razor), let's go see what you've got!" With great effort on the part of the large prehistory flyer to squeeze his wingspan through the doorways, Naruto's newly named partner came with him outside to head back over to the Gym.

XxX

(Cinnabar Island Gym – Volcano Top)

The invisible walls thrown up by Sabrina's Mr. Mime were seemingly impenetrable for Janine to get past. Even when she drew a short blade and tried cutting through it, the blade of her small weapon did nothing to pierce through. It was like trying to stab through real wall and the recoil injured her hands and threw her off-balance just the same.

"It's useless." Sabrina commented confidently before waving her hand and knocking Janine back and to the ground with a psychic push as her eyes held a blue glow, "The sole focus of Mr. Mime's training is to provide me with an insurmountable defense. Even an Explosion attack couldn't kill me from behind one of his Barriers. So give up!" With added emphasis in her words she repeated her previous answer and struck Janine back down forcefully as she tried to get back up.

How could she demand her to give up? Not until she punched or cut that smug face of hers to prove a point. Aside from that, Jiraiya had entrusted her to defeat Sabrina. If he was off in life-or-death battle against an enemy that would make Sabrina on her own look absolutely harmless, she could do her part.

She didn't even have to really win. The entire point of her fighting against Sabrina was to do enough to disrupt her ability to give Moltres mental commands. All Jiraiya needed was an opening. He didn't say so, but she knew the type. Someone as savvy as him would only need one shot.

And indeed Sabrina wasn't even really doing battle with her. She was keeping her back so that she could focus on issuing Moltres commands to kill Jiraiya. Getting hit by a damn psychic punch to the face hurt like hell, but it could have been way worse and she knew it.

Rubbing her badly bruised cheek, Janine got back up with her Grimer's body still draped over her torso like a battle jacket. The damn bitch intentionally aimed for her face to avoid hitting her version of body armor, "Harden." Upon command, the slimy Pokémon's body seemed to solidify and steady.

Sabrina let out a sigh upon seeing that Janine had not been discouraged from continuing the battle any. Didn't she get the point? A little girl like her could never muster enough force to get past Mr. Mime's protective wall, nor could she get around it. She would never get a chance to ever safely attack her, so why try? It just wasn't smart, _"You're going to be in for a long evening if you plan on keeping this up sweetie."_ Sabrina told her mentally while simultaneously issuing Moltres another command.

If that stupid bird would just hurry up and kill that Jiraiya man already she could kill Janine off easily enough and finish the mission of obtaining the knowledge in Blaine's head on Mewtwo. Their leader paid a large sum of money in funding that man's research and it was not going to go to waste because someone found their latent sense of morality.

Yeah, Janine heard Sabrina's telepathic taunting. But talking smack wasn't going to get her past that wall any easier.

As long as it was up, Sabrina couldn't hit her with any psychic attacks either due to the strength on both sides of the mental wall, but she could merely have Mr. Mime drop it for a split second before letting loose her attack and allowing him to put it back up. She didn't believe that she had anything fast enough to utilize that small window of opportunity, so she had to try a different avenue.

"Poison Gas!" The head of her Grimer popped up over her shoulder and from its mouth it fired thick, purple, billowing clouds of noxious fumes that didn't seem to go any further than the barricade, "Grr… Sludge!" On cue, Janine extended her arms and her Grimer fired off speedy globs of its body that hit and stuck to the wall, not managing to breach it as it slid down to the ground.

Nothing seemed to work as Sabrina just yawned in a bored manner to continue taunting her younger opponent, "Didn't you hear me? Nothing gets past these walls, even harmful fumes from your stupid Grimer. The right hand controls Barrier, the left hand controls Light Screen."

"Uh huh, I don't care." Janine replied in an uncommitted manner before jumping back far away from where the gas had been aimed as it still hung in the air around, "We'll see about that. Grimer, Flamethrower!"

"I told you that it won't work!" Sabrina shouted as she saw Janine's Grimer open its mouth with a fire building in the back of its throat, "Light Screen is going to block it no matter what you do!"

Instead of getting caught in the banter, Janine just smirked when her Grimer fired off the powerful stream of fire directly from its mouth at Mr. Mime's defensive barriers, "What if I don't give two craps about getting through your barrier?" The moment the flames made contact with the gas that her Grimer had previously let loose, a massive explosion engulfed Sabrina and her Mr. Mime.

She couldn't help but feel a bit satisfied at the sight of the flames and the feeling of the volcano quivering from her mishmash attack. A Grimer's volatile gases and fire attacks were a treacherous combination.

But when the smoke cleared, nothing seemed to have changed. Still standing just as confident as before was Sabrina, though her Mr. Mime seemed to be a little tired at having to fend off a super-enhanced Flamethrower and the subsequent blast that followed it.

"What did I tell you?" Sabrina preened, blatantly disrespecting the powerful attempt on her life that had failed, "Crawl back on home little girl. You're a poison Pokémon trainer, and you're not even half as good of one as Koga is. You don't stand a chance."

"I agree with you actually." Janine surprisingly agreed, flexing out a fist covered in a Grimer arm like a long sleeve, "I'm not as good as my father at using poison tactics with my Pokémon. He's the best." She started running at the barriers again and Mr. Mime braced up to put his power behind blocking whatever Janine had planned this time around, "But that's why most of my tactics don't revolve around poisoning anyone at all! Strength!"

Raising an eyebrow in confusion, Sabrina couldn't think what the girl was possibly planning. She wasn't going to break through no matter how much extra power her Grimer had with Strength enhancing what the two of them were capable of.

Instead of attacking the barrier though, Janine jumped in the air and landed right in front of it, delivering an earth-rending punch that caused the igneous rock of the volcano to collapse. The earlier sludge attack had also been flammable, and had weakened the composition of their portion of volcano wall to the extent that she could seriously damage it with one more shot.

The large chunk collapsed and broke off, sending both girls falling down into a magma vein.

"Ariados, Spider Web!"

From another Poke Ball, Janine released her first and favorite Pokémon that quickly put up a massive web that managed to catch her and her Grimer before they could take the final plunge into the very inhospitable molten rock inside of the volcano.

Sweating at the sheer heat of the volcano and the effort she had been exerting in order to fight, Janine stood up on the web with an unsure look on her face, "I really don't feel like this is ov-." She was cut off when her Ariados grabbed her and stuck to the jagged wall of the volcano as the web that had been holding them up was rendered to tatters by an invisible force.

Looking back up as she held on tightly to her spider of a Pokémon, Janine looked up to see Sabrina holding on to the back of her Kadabra, glaring down at her hatefully, "That was a risky ploy, trying to bring down our entire segment of volcano wall to try and take me out. I'm a bit impressed."

Due to splitting her attention between giving Moltres battle commands and seeing the battle against Jiraiya in her mind, she couldn't read Janine's mind and determine her intended course of action. As the daughter of a poison Pokémon Gym Leader she expected Janine to be easy to prepare for due to being a psychic Pokémon Gym Leader herself. Taking her lightly almost got her killed had it not been for a quick use of Kadabra's Teleport to save her and her Mr. Mime.

The damage from the falling rocks that nearly crushed them on the way down rendered her Pokémon that had been integral to her defensive control strategy unable to continue fighting. Well if you wanted something done correctly you had to do it yourself.

"A little misdirection here or there makes things more interesting." Janine quipped as Ariados started scaling the wall to get them back up to the top.

"True enough." Sabrina wryly stated before issuing a command, "Kadabra, Psybeam!"

"Night Shade!"

From Kadabra's glowing red eyes it released multicolored circles of psychic energy aimed down at Janine and her Ariados, while in return Ariados fired a streaky black beam with a red outline that clashed with the Psybeam.

The unstable clashing of the two blasts started bringing down more rocks all around Janine and her Ariados, but neither Ariados' Night Shade, nor Kadabra's Psybeam could overpower the other. This wasn't good though. Any stray boulder that fell could hit them and they'd fall to their deaths into the volcano. Sabrina wouldn't even have to really beat them.

A pat to Ariados' side gave the spider Pokémon the command to break off from firing the Night Shade, but he jumped to the side and continued the vertical climb as the Psybeam flew past from above, "Flash!" While Janine made sure to cover her eyes, Ariados's horn let off a blinding shock of white light in every direction that assaulted the eyes of all.

"Gah!" Telepathic mind-reading or not, your eyes didn't have anything to do with that, and Sabrina got an eyeful of nothing but optically-penetrating light. She knew what would be next though, and prepared for it accordingly as she turned around to where she could sense that Janine and Ariados had moved to, "Kadabra, Reflect!"

An body-sized ovular see-through field of energy came up in front of Kadabra and Sabrina as Janine reached it and punched at it with her physical prowess augmented by her Grimer suit's use of Strength. The punch didn't hit them, but upon smacking the Reflect, both Sabrina and Kadabra were knocked away impressively enough.

Covered in filth from the volcano ash and with a growl at the fact that she was beginning to feel the mounting pressure of the battle, Sabrina pointed directly at Janine and decided to rid herself of this troublesome girl once and for all, "I've had enough of you!" Extending her hand Janine's way she made eye contact with her and clenched up her hand as if she were holding something.

Without warning, Janine found her body unable to move due to Sabrina's psychic grip, 'Are you kidding me? She can do that?' Her body was simply frozen in place, unresponsive to any command she tried to issue it, 'Come on, move!'

With a cruel smirk on her face, Sabrina darted her eyes at her now standing Kadabra to finish her ninja opponent off once and for all. She couldn't miss now, thus it was time for a sure-kill shot, "Die! Zap Cannon!"

In its hands, Kadabra formed a small marble of yellow-green electricity with a solid yellow core that quickly expanded with a loud crackling noise to half the size of a regular person before shooting it off at Janine like a cannonball.

Her body couldn't move. Dodging wasn't an option, her Ariados wasn't close enough to bail her out without getting both of them caught in the blast, and since she couldn't even budge her arms she couldn't call out Forretress to try and block the powerful move with its steel-hard body.

However in an incredible show of self-sacrifice, her Grimer that had been serving as a suit to enhance her combat capabilities globbed off of her and reformed, its body expanded as widely as it would go just before the Zap Cannon would have hit both it and its master.

A large electric explosion forced Sabrina to look away and cover her eyes lest she get them injured by debris, but she felt mightily satisfied. Zap Cannon was a damnable hard attack to aim, but with what she could do she could hold an opponent in place for the most accurate shot that anyone could boast with the same technique.

From the cloud of smoke, a swift thread of webbing flew out and wrapped around Kadabra's neck before yanking it forward away from Sabrina much to her surprise as her main battler was taken away from her so suddenly.

"Poison Sting!" Countless little needles of venom flew out of the cloud at Sabrina, forcing her to utilize a psychic push to stop them in midair. This didn't stop the Kadabra that came hurtling back at her through the smoke that collided with her body, "And take your crap back with you!"

As it all blew away, a very angry kunoichi stood, breathing heavily as she stood over her Grimer that had been rendered completely out of it, in a puddle of its own form at her feet after throwing itself in harm's way to protect her. She spared a sorrowful glance down for just a second as she had Grimer return into its Poke Ball. She would definitely be showing her gratitude later, because that was a heavy risk that had never been part of any plan.

Thank goodness the two members of Grimer evolutionary line were amongst the most resilient Pokémon species in the world.

Still, that didn't do anything to curb Janine's anger as her fingers shook with just how upset she happened to be, both at almost getting killed and at what had happened to one of her most important Pokémon as a result.

"Psychics can tell the future right?" Janine said, drawing a kunai as she stood next to her Ariados and kneeled down by him, "Well can you tell me how I'm going to end up killing you? I'm thinking of a thousand different ways to do it and I can't decide on just one."

But Janine wasn't the only one who was angry at this point, as Sabrina was absolutely livid, "That makes two of us then." She allowed this mere girl to hang around against her for so long and allowed her to find a method to battle her that seemed to circumvent the type advantage that she held, "Kadabra, Recover." Her injured Pokémon started to heal itself right before everyone's eyes, and in a subsequent Poison Sting attempt to take advantage of that window, Sabrina once again blocked it all with a wide psychic push, "I'm done with you. You'd better enjoy the next thirty seconds."

Thirty seconds? She really thought that defeating her in thirty seconds was possible? Janine didn't know whether to feel insulted or wary of the sheer confidence that she held in saying such a thing. It wasn't like it had been before, with her just looking down on her, it was as if Sabrina was saying this as if it had already happened and she was merely informing her after the fact.

It wasn't like she had the advantage in Janine not knowing how her personal psychic abilities worked. In order to pull off the body-disabling maneuver she used earlier she needed the precise timing and the target in her line of sight to catch her. That was the only way Janine figured she'd beat her in thirty seconds and she wasn't going to give her the opportunity, "Agility!"

Climbing onto Ariados' back, the spider's body lightened and loosened up, increasing its ability to move and react two times over. As he started to move with his trainer on his back though, the angry eyes of Sabrina didn't even try to follow their movements, "Kadabra, Teleport us away from any avenue they can use to attack us."

With a nod, the newly recovered Kadabra grabbed onto his trainer and did just that, vanishing from sight with Janine and Ariados reappearing from their speedy rush just a moment later. The eyes of both the Pokémon and the kunoichi looked around the volcano rim for where they had gone.

After a moment, they were spotted, quite a ways away, far out of any kind of battle distance, still on the volcano rim. Both Sabrina and her Kadabra held their hands up with bright, glowing blue eyes, "Psychic!" Both of them combined the fullest extent of their psychic abilities as large portions of Janine's area of the volcano rim began to slowly break apart and levitate into the air as if gravity were in reverse.

The most powerful psychic-type move possible in straight battle was absolutely terrifying with Sabrina using her own abilities to amplify it. Both Sabrina and her Kadabra using Psychic simultaneously covered a dangerously wide amount of space which explained why she had to Teleport away before using it lest she be caught in range of her own technique.

Her body was lifted off of the ground, unable to move, as was her Ariados, stuck amongst the pieces of rock that had been lifted with them. They weren't in close enough proximity to do anything even if they were able to move to stop her from manipulating their bodies with her mind.

"_I heard that a skilled ninja could do all kinds of things that were inhuman. As a psychic myself I'm rather interested in that. So let's see how much you know about flying without your Golbat to hold you up!"_

With that being said telekinetically, both Janine and her Ariados felt an impact as if they had been hit head on by a rolling boulder and found themselves flung along with all of the rocks out off of the entire volcano.

From that elevation she wouldn't have survived the fall, let alone with the force that she had been thrown with.

So this was how it ended? Going splat on the ground somewhere in the Cinnabar Island town streets with her Ariados at her side suffering the same fate. And it wasn't even her father Koga doing the deed the way she always assumed she'd die if it ever came to that.

'I guess I wasn't ready for a life and death battle against an opponent on Otou-sama's level after all.' She thought to herself as she tried to prepare herself for the sudden smack of wherever she was going to land. Hopefully she wouldn't crash through a roof and scare the daylights out of some poor family.

But seriously, she should have hit the ground by now. What gave? She didn't have anything that could fly and hold her up at the same time after her Golbat had been blasted with flames and taken out of contention earlier by Moltres.

When she looked down she found the ground passing by her as she was on the move back to the volcano. Upon trying to move around she found her body suspended in the air by something that jangled and noted them to be chains, "Meh?" Looking up she saw Naruto peering down over the side of some bulky grey thing, arms held out with the chains holding her extending from his hands, "Babyface?"

"I'm not even gonna ask how you wound up getting chucked off of a volcano." Naruto deadpanned as he started trying to pull her up safely. Having her tug on the chains with her full body weight happened to be very uncomfortable, as he had to focus to make sure that she didn't pull more of his chakra out of his tenketsu in the form of chains, "Are we even for Celadon?"

As she was pulled up she managed to see that her Ariados was safely sticking to the underbelly of… whatever Naruto was riding that just so happened to catch her out of the air. A few moments later and she was sitting behind Naruto, holding onto him so that she didn't fall off of the winged creature of her salvation, "I think we are. But, where did you get a Pokémon that could fly?"

"Remember that fossil you stole a few months ago that I kept with me?" Naruto explained before reaching forward and patting his new Pokémon on the top of his head as he let out a satisfied screech, "This is the DNA of what was in there. Say hello to _my_ Aerodactyl; Kamisori." Emphasis on the 'my' portion of that statement.

Janine nodded in understanding before tapping Naruto on the shoulder, "Well in that case you owe me money. I was stealing fossils for a client, and you wound up benefitting from my hard work, so I'm owed monetary compensation."

"I just saved your ass and I have to pay you now?"

"You said we were even from Celadon. Well now we're not anymore."

"You're such a pain. Just wait until we sell the Moon Stones."

Whatever. Now wasn't the time or the place. They were nearing the volcano once again and upon getting close, Janine narrowed her eyes at the form standing on the rim of the geographical structure, "Swoop down really quick."

XxX

Of all the dumb luck situations…

Sabrina bore witness to her victim being caught out of the air by a damned prehistoric Pokémon being ridden by the kid that she had nearly killed in the Rocket Game Corner of all things. Just where the hell did he get something that rare? Team Rocket was supposed to have the market cornered on strong and vicious Pokémon, especially ones that special!

"Coming in hot!"

And then she had to hit the deck to keep her head from being taken off when Naruto's Aerodactyl decided to drop in and try to snap her into two while both Naruto and Janine cackled cruelly at getting her to cower. One couldn't say that it wasn't deserved though after their respective experiences with the Saffron City Gym Leader.

Speaking of whom, her mood was progressively growing worse and worse for multiple reasons. This day was turning into one gigantic clusterfuck, and they still didn't know where Blaine and his research were!

"Koga kill your damned daughter already!" She seemingly shouted irritably to the skies at nothing. At least until a second mighty caw came from the clouds. Trouble was coming, and those brats had no chance of surviving it.

XxX

The moment that Sabrina's control over Moltres had been forgotten in exchange for focusing on doing battle with Janine, Jiraiya could tell as the fight shifted moods. Moltres started moving more instinctively.

This was good.

It was also bad.

As a matter of fact, in all truth and actuality it was actually worse than the previous situation, because now he had a Moltres that knew how to use its own power better than any human could in full control of its own battle plan and it was all pissed off at him for severely wounding it earlier.

This fact was no more evident than when the long-range strategy that had stalemated them both had been tossed along the wayside. Moltres' body began to glow orange as if it was becoming entirely fire, the element it represented, and soared directly up into the air past the clouds.

"Oh I don't like that." Jiraiya said as he could see the clouds begin to disperse due to the intense heat being generated by Moltres within them. He immediately turned on his heels and began running down the side of the volcano. That was the last place that he needed to be now that he had a chance to change the field of battle, and he felt that he should have been running anyway as Moltres began diving down from the sky like a specter of fire.

And it was coming right for him.

"Ero-sennin, put your hands up!"

'What?' Who was he to question such loud advice at a time like that? Thus he did and wound up being picked up by the feet of Naruto's Aerodactyl, just before Moltres struck the ground and caused a vile explosion that ripped into the side of the volcano.

Flaming rocks flew high into the air along with billowing plumes of fire and even lava, as Moltres had punched a massive hole through the wall of the volcano. That had to have hurt to miss.

It took Jiraiya a second to realize that he almost got himself caught in that deathstorm before he started laughing madly, kicking his legs in the open air, "Bwahahahaha! That's right! Do you see what you get now when you tangle with the almighty Jiraiya? My apprentice brings gigantic dinosaur birds out of thin air to wage war for his beloved master's safety! You've got to go through him to get to me!"

As he continued to pump up his ego a distance away from the danger, a light blue beam of icy cold energy came close to nearly striking his body, getting him to yelp in surprise. From above the clouds, the grand blue form of Articuno swooped down with Koga on its back, "If you're offering both your life and the life of Namikaze's spawn in such a manner I'll just have to take it."

Jiraiya's eyes quickly panned up to Naruto sitting on Kamisori's back with Janine still holding onto him, though now she was glaring at her father as Kamisori and Articuno started flying circles around each other in the sky, "Naruto, what he meant by that was-."

"I already know." Naruto replied, allowing Jiraiya to save face before he had to try and fumble his way through a hurried explanation of how his father happened to be the Yondaime Hokage. There was a battle going on at the moment anyway, "Can we just fight this guy and beat him already?"

"It's not going to be that easy Naruto." Janine said, still locking her eyes on the bird that had her estranged father on its back, "Otou-sama isn't a weak trainer. He's been Fuchsia City's Gym Leader for twenty years."

A poison Pokémon specialist though. That gave them one hell of a chance here, because Articuno certainly wasn't a poison-type. One of those Ice Beams would put a stop to their show in a hurry though, and both Naruto and Janine knew it. Jiraiya didn't, but that was just because he currently wasn't privy to too much knowledge on Pokémon.

'So my first battle with Kamisori is going to be against the Pokémon that almost froze me solid in one move?' Naruto thought with a pronounced frown. This was _not_ a good day. Looking over his shoulder when he felt Janine clutch onto him tighter, his determination formed.

A part of him expected Jiraiya to pull out some magnificently brilliant ploy out of absolutely nowhere with some amazing miracle jutsu that would save them all and make it rain ramen broth at the same time. But the part of him that had suffered several setbacks over the past few months knew full well that something like that wasn't a reality. Jiraiya was in the feet of his Aerodactyl, and the only thing that was real in this situation was him and the fact that he had the knowledge they needed to win.

"Ero-sennin, how much do you trust me?" Naruto asked, looking down at his sensei that seemed a bit puzzled at the question, "Enough to listen to what I want you to do?"

"That depends kid." Jiraiya said, sounding completely serious. In the past when Naruto had a 'plan', like when he had planned on forgoing the trip to look for Tsunade just to hunt down Itachi and Kisame and kick their asses, it was just a stupid childish whim. Here he sounded completely serious, truly asking for Jiraiya's cooperation with something he had planned, "What exactly are you thinking?"

"The collar around Articuno's neck. Can you see it?"

Shading his eyes from the setting sun, a squinting Jiraiya did manage to see a device around the Pokémon's neck with a red flashing light on it. That was what Naruto was referring to. Janine could see it too and commented on such, "What's it supposed to be Babyface?"

"Blaine said that it's supposed to control Pokémon that are too unstable for people to command normally." Naruto elucidated, never tearing his eyes away from Koga and Articuno as they continued to circle each other, "If we can break it we don't have to actually find a way to beat a damn legendary creature with a Pokémon that I just got resurrected all of twenty-five minutes ago."

That sounded markedly better than what their previous plan had been, which was nothing, "Where's Blaine anyway?" Jiraiya asked, not seeing the age-advanced scientist of a Gym Leader anywhere.

"At the lab in town." Naruto said, "Before we could escape the mansion Team Rocket attacked us and tried to bring the place down on our heads. He hurt his leg on the way out so he stayed behind until we finish this and pick him up." He had a powerful-looking Rhydon with him, and who knew what other Pokémon a Gym Leader packed on their person. He'd be safe.

Safer than up there with them anyway.

"Ice Shard!" At Koga's command, Articuno began flapping its wings and shooting a barrage of miniature jagged chunks at its fellow airborne foe that proceeded to dodge them with the wide range of motion granted by the sky, "Bah, you're supposed to be legendary! There's certainly nothing legendary about your aim, that's for sure." Despite the annoyance in the eyes of the Articuno it continued to keep firing and trying to hit Kamisori.

The devastating small ice projectiles trailed just behind reaching Kamisori's tail as he sped across the air trying everything he could to avoid them until the attack tapered off. It was rather hard for Naruto to think on what attacks of Aerodactly he could remember from the Pokédex while everyone was screaming their heads off through the midair barrel rolls.

Even though Naruto was sticking to Kamisori while wondering if his attempts at general good deeds offset his long list of mean-spirited pranks in case he died and had to be judged he had to maintain his battle composure, "Roar!" Naruto ordered over the fearful noises.

Kamisori immediately stopped and turned to Articuno before letting out an equilibrium-shattering cry that actually knocked it back, giving it a few flips before it righted itself with a mighty flap.

Not deterred by the defensive move posted by his foe, Koga smirked as he uttered the next command, "Mist." And all of a sudden Naruto felt like he was fighting Zabuza all over again when the entire area became cloaked in a thick fog.

"Crap." Naruto said as they were now flying blind. He could find someone that he couldn't see, but with the howling wind piercing his ears he couldn't make out any subtle noise to help him.

Jiraiya's senses were far better trained though, and his presence was definitely felt as he wrapped himself around Kamisori's leg and started making hand-seals, "Katon: Endan (Fire Release: Flame Bullet)!" From his mouth, fire spewed forth like a flamethrower and a pained caw alerted everyone to Articuno's location, "Brat, turn!"

"I heard!" Naruto shouted as he guided Kamisori to make a midair about face, "Fire Fang!"

Kamisori's sharp teeth became ablaze and he sped through the mist to where he found a disoriented but mostly unharmed Articuno that was just as blind as he had been. By the time he was upon it, it was too late for the ice fowl to do anything but take the bite right on the higher point of its wing.

It definitely felt that, and let it be known with horribly pained cries before instinctually retaliating with a close-range Ice Beam that struck Kamisori right in the side of the head and face, prying him off before he could burn it too badly.

"Mister Jiraiya!" Janine shouted, pointing at the collar now that they were up close to Articuno, "Naruto's Aerodactyl missed!"

Responsibility such as this came with the territory of being the adult. It would have to go down as the dumbest thing that he had ever tried, but he always called himself awesome and the greatest… well he had to back that up every once in a while no matter how dangerous it was to do so.

"The collar right?" Jiraiya said mostly to himself before jumping off of Kamisori's leg and landing right on Articuno's chest just below its head where it couldn't reach. He had to quickly draw a kunai to block the one that tried to stab him from Koga on Articuno's back, "We've got to stop meeting like this."

The two men struggled against one another until their stabilizing point of Articuno was jostled by a well-timed Wing Attack from Aerodactyl that resulted in both men losing their weapons. In Jiraiya's now empty hand he formed a spinning blue orb of chakra that he planned to slam into the collar around Articuno's neck. He was grabbed around the wrist before he could land the blow however and found himself in another test of strength with Koga.

"You're a fool, just like Namikaze." Koga managed to grit out while he shakily struggled with holding back Jiraiya's arm from completing his attack on the collar, "What do you think will happen after you break this collar? Do you think that Articuno will merely fly you to the ground safely as thanks for freeing it? You'll be killed."

"No." Jiraiya admitted, smiling despite the dire situation and the surprising strength that Koga was showing at being able to deter his arm from using Rasengan, "But I have a feeling that as angry as it may be with me, it's still going to turn on you first." Jiraiya stuck his feet onto Articuno's chest and let go from around the bird's neck to use his other hand to form a Rasengan, much to Koga's shock and horror, "Let's find out! Rasengan!"

Slamming the jutsu into the collar it shattered like a piece of fragile machinery as Jiraiya propelled himself and Koga off of Articuno to fall through the air. Jiraiya shut his eyes and went spread-eagle as he fell. He listened to Naruto's idea to take out the collar and now he was trusting in his student's growth to ensure that his faith wasn't misplaced.

Right on cue he felt his descent draw to a sharp close and a smile pulled at his lips even though he never opened his eyes. He didn't need to. He could hear the jangle of the Chakra Chains that had caught him, and just as quickly he was bundled in spider's thread on Aerodactyl's underbelly with Ariados.

"Thanks for that. Kami, he's so much heavier than you are Janine!"

"He'd damn well better be! What are you trying to say?"

Meanwhile, Koga glared at them while he fell as Articuno disappeared into the clouds, flying as far away from the summer island as it could. Koga cared nothing of his current fate either, livid at having lost the Articuno that he had painstakingly captured. He kept his arms crossed over his chest until he was picked up by a firebird that streaked a flaming trail through the sky to catch him.

"You lost Articuno." Koga didn't need to hear such a thing from his fellow Gym Leader in Sabrina who was flying Moltres, "I wasn't expecting you of all people to let them get that close to take the collar off. Still, it's Blaine's fault for divulging our secrets." Her face lacked the usual confident smirk that it held, replaced with a cold countenance, "Shall we kill them before they free Moltres as well?"

Koga just let out a displeased grunt as Sabrina mentally commanded Moltres once more to do her bidding, "I think we have something more important to worry about at the moment." Fighting with the pair of ninjas from Konoha and his insolent daughter had nothing to do with their mission, "Any ideas on how to get back on task before we let too much time pass?"

It took a moment, but Sabrina's eyes lit up roguishly, "Yes. Remember the alternative to our original objective. On the chance that we cannot obtain our necessary information, it all has to vanish with Blaine." They could find Mewtwo on their own, but Blaine's treachery was something that could not be overlooked by their leader, "What do you think?"

Nothing was said by Koga at first until Sabrina stopped Moltres in the air, with Naruto's Aerodactyl coming to a stop right in front of it, each glaring at the other. As the Fuchsia City ninja held up a strand of seven solid black Poke Balls connected together by ninja wire, he ignored Janine's existence entirely as she gasped fearfully at what he was holding.

Her reaction did not escape Naruto's notice though, "What exactly is that supposed to be? Should we be running away right now?"

Janine just shook her head in disbelief, "You're really going to use those? Are you out of your mind?"

Once again he didn't acknowledge that his only child was even speaking, instead addressing Jiraiya who had gotten himself out of the web cocoon that held him, enough that he was a viable facet in battle again, "One warning and one warning only." Koga said, making sure to address them seriously, "Give up the location of Blaine and allow us to take him, or the consequences will be dire."

Give up Blaine? That was the entire reason that they were there to begin with. And what consequences. Half of their trump card powerhouses in the legendary birds currently on the battlefield happened to be gone to parts unknown. A fight against Moltres was daunting, but it wasn't anything that they weren't willing to chance.

"What consequences?" Naruto drawled before a sharp pull on his cheek got him to turn around abruptly to complain to Janine, at least until he saw the grave look on her face, "Janine, what does he have in his hand right now? You're freaking me out."

She had plenty of reason to be freaked out, "A forbidden technique that my clan used back in the old days centuries ago when people started spreading out across the continent and Pokémon were still being discovered." Her voice was quiet and shaky as she spoke, "You know how certain Pokémon have a propensity for blowing up with Selfdestruct and Explosion? Well back when Pokémon were first being tamed for various reasons, the ancestors of our style conditioned a select number of Pokémon for the purpose of blowing themselves up."

They were kept sedated, in the dark, and asleep as often as possible, as the slightest stimulation would result in the volatile creatures exploding. It was a very dark practice that eventually died out when people started living with Pokémon and saw them as partners to work with instead of just wild creatures that threatened the existence of human beings.

But as the leader of the clan, all of the techniques were passed down to Koga, and he put this into practice in his own way, hence the black Poke Balls to differentiate them from normal Pokémon that he would use to fight.

"The moment those Poke Balls open…" Janine said, her skin paling at the thought, "The Pokémon inside of them are going to blow up. They're not going to fight or try to get their bearings, they're just going to explode."

One Explosion could take out half a city block. Seven combined and there wouldn't be enough left within a quarter-mile to tell what had been there previously.

Then what good were they? Using them all at that range would catch everyone in the blast, even if he threw them. This didn't seem like a situation where it was either complete the mission or die trying, so what was the point?

"Are you brain-dead?" Jiraiya legitimately asked, not fearing what he had heard from Janine at Koga's apparent intended actions at all, "Did Minato hit you in the head too many times all those years ago or what? What do you think you're going to get out of using that against us?"

Koga raised an eyebrow with a sadistic glint in his eye, "So am I to understand that you're not planning on telling us what we want to know?"

"You don't have the balls to kill everyone up here including yourself."

"And you would be right about that." Koga stated earnestly, "Dying in the middle of a situation like this just to take a Konoha ninja as troublesome as you out doesn't bring me any closer to my true goal in life." He then gestured forward getting everyone to look back at the town of Cinnabar Island, "…Eradicating that town on the other hand would ensure that anywhere Blaine could hide would be destroyed." His eyes flicked down at the volcano that they all happened to be flying over.

And the implication wasn't lost on anyone.

This man was certifiably out of his mind, and there didn't seem to be any little angel sitting on his shoulder arguing against the morality of this action. As a matter of fact Sabrina seemed to be encouraging it with the look on her face that seemed to be giving him the green light to proceed.

Everyone just seemed to freeze in place at the situation presented to them, but for Koga he had been having one very trying day, and his patience had long since reached its limit, "Fine. If you are all so inept that you cannot make such a simple choice I'll make it for you. Live with your mistake. Mewtwo still lives, thus we really don't need Blaine alive. This island is worthless."

And with that he threw the strand of black Poke Balls down into the mouth of the volcano.

Naruto, Jiraiya, and Janine just stared open-mouthed at the sight of the balls disappearing down toward the volcano, and a very morbid part of them all hoped that the Pokémon within them wouldn't release before they hit the lava. Yes, it would kill whatever Pokémon were inside, but they were going to die anyway. At least that way they wouldn't have exploded first.

But it wasn't to be as the simultaneous sounds of the Poke Balls popping open sounded out. Not even a second later an absolutely deafening, earth-rending blast blew the volcano apart and sent Kamisori spiraling away violently from the force it generated upward. Worst case scenario of course occurred and the sound of the planet not agreeing with one of its hotspots being stirred up told them all what was about to occur.

Moltres, and those riding Moltres, happened to be safe from the superheated debris and lava that flew all over the place as the result of the cataclysmic actions, "That was an impressive blast." Sabrina said, watching it all as if she were a mere spectator, "To level the inside of a volcano like that…"

"Seven Electrodes utilizing Explosion." Koga said plainly as though it weren't such a big deal, "Conditioning them to do such a thing at the slightest stimulus was the real challenge. We're done here." He said, prompting Sabrina to fly off.

She pulled out her radio to inform Lt. Surge to give the order to pull out and leave the waters around Cinnabar Island open once more so that all of the operatives on the island could leave and blend in with the fleeing populace. No one would want to be on that island in a matter of twenty minutes unless they wanted to be buried in fire and lava, and if Blaine wanted to escape he would have to use public transport. Then they would have him.

Until then they needed to go and regroup with Lt. Surge in preparation for ending the operation. Their leader would want the results of what happened there.

XxX

Getting blown clear off of your Aerodactyl wasn't exactly the best way to spend an early evening. Getting blown off of it into the ocean by a volcanic blast was another thing altogether. At last he got picked up fairly quickly though, once again promoting the fact that Jiraiya was indeed far tougher than Naruto was.

"Ow…" Naruto said, holding Kamisori's Poke Ball and laying stomach-first on the hard-shelled back of Jiraiya's other Pokémon; a large blue sea creature with a long neck, curled ears, four flippers, and a short horn on its forehead. A Lapras, "I didn't know you caught a Pokémon Ero-sennin…"

That wasn't important though. From their place just offshore they could see the volcano erupting with the lava spattering and flowing out of the pulverized volcanic cone. Both Naruto and Janine were sprawled out on his Lapras' back, coughing and sputtering salt water out with angry looks on their faces while Jiraiya stared at Cinnabar Island that was getting closer to the horizon.

Blaine had been there, and there were so many people that lived there as well. Living by a volcano, they had to be prepared for that kind of thing, but it was an eruption that didn't have to occur. And their lives would be uprooted by the actions of a callous organization.

So even here there were people dead-set on doing whatever they felt they had to in order to get what they wanted, no matter what it took. They had just destroyed a city.

"Kid I don't want you fighting these people anymore." Jiraiya said suddenly, surprising both Naruto and Janine, "We came to this place so I could train you and make sure you got stronger without having to worry about dealing with things like this. But look." He said, gesturing forward.

That didn't sit well with Naruto at all, "Ero-sennin, these guys aren't those Akatsuki guys you stopped me from fighting before. I can beat Team Rocket." He said with complete conviction as he sat up on his knees on Lapras' back, "The next time I fight them there won't be some cheap, cowardly copout like what Janine's dad did today." Was he supposed to just let them sit back and do what they wanted?

Hearing the biting tone when Naruto referred to Koga as her dad, Janine visibly flinched and looked down in shame, "I can't just walk away from this either Mister Jiraiya. Otou-sama, he's my father… and as the supposed heir to Fuchsia City's ninja arts it's my responsibility to try and stop him from using our skills and techniques like this. He's making us out to be monsters."

Just listening to both of these kids made Jiraiya want to heave a heavy sigh, "Look, I may not know much about Pokémon or this place, but as far as I'm concerned psychopaths are similar all over the world. Let me handle this. I'll find them and put an end to this."

Any organization with members that saw absolutely nothing wrong with artificially activating an entire volcano as a means to an end to neutralize a mission objective was not anything that he felt comfortable letting his young charge have a crack at. It was far too dangerous. They were strangers in this place, and they had to step lightly.

Both kids seemed depressed at Jiraiya shooting down their desires to keep trying to fight, with both sitting back-to-back on the shell of his Lapras as the proverbially licked their wounds from the day, and they had their share of them.

"We already know where they're emanating from though." Janine muttered quietly, a bit put off from being admonished by someone that wasn't even her father or teacher, "We knew where they were set up the second we got here and saw what they had done to lock Cinnabar Island down."

Now that got Jiraiya's attention, "What?" They already figured out where Team Rocket had their base set up? No way, "Where? And how do you know?"

Naruto wiped stray trails of water running down his face from his undesired dunk in the ocean, "We saw this same thing at all of the waypoint stations around Saffron City. There's no way in or out of that place without getting all of the city's security force after you." They blew it off at the time since they were just trying to pass through to the next town, after this situation started out eerily similarly to what was going on there it wasn't just a coincidence. It couldn't be.

"I vaguely know where that is." Jiraiya said, and it was true. He was familiar with the maps, enough to know that Saffron was the centermost settlement in Kanto, but he didn't know much at all about the land itself, "So we're going to have to break a state-organized security border."

"It's not state-organized." Janine pointed out, getting attention placed on her that she wasn't really ready for. Then she remembered that they weren't really from around there, "Like I said before, there isn't really much conformity in towns on this continent. Some places have mayors and police and stuff like that, others don't. It varies. Well Saffron is pretty much centered around Silph Co., and they're the ones that pretty much foot the bill for things like city development, and keeping the peace."

Naruto took in this information before staring at her with a knowing half-lidded expression, "Why do you know that?"

A nonchalant Janine just chose to deflect the scrutiny in her own way, "Definitely not because I had been planning on robbing the HQ eventually if we hadn't met Babyface, but what I was or was not going to steal is not the issue here. Focus up."

She was right. Once again it was to be noted that there was something infinitely more important that was setting on the minds of the elder ninja and the two younger ones.

With a more serious look on his face than anyone, even Naruto, had ever seen, Jiraiya looked over the two of them and then back at Cinnabar Island as it continued sending lava down below into the town, "I want you to look at that. Both of you, not just Naruto, I want you to look too Janine. Even though I'm not responsible for you, it doesn't mean you can't take something from this. Don't ever forget what you're seeing here. Remember this, to make sure that you know just what can be at stake at any given time. Just because you're kids doesn't mean anything is guaranteed for you."

They could talk about a training trip all that they wanted, and how they had years for Naruto to improve to the extent where he could defend himself against a ninja of his genin sensei Kakashi's caliber or better, but that rang rather hollow at a time like then. Being strong then wasn't going to do anything for those people now.

A rather somber Naruto did just as Jiraiya asked of him. In the orange glow of the sunset and the shadows cast by the dimming light it disguised the darkening whisker-marks and the angry red that his eyes had momentarily turned to while looking at the formerly beautiful island.

XxX

(Just Off the Coast of Cinnabar Island)

Standing at the tail end of one of the many ferries that had hurried thousands of people off Cinnabar Island in the panic caused by the sudden eruption, Blaine stood with his leg in a makeshift splint, still holding himself up with his special question mark cane as he watched Cinnabar Island in the distance.

After Naruto had left with his Aerodactyl, Blaine had wasted no time in gathering up everything on the Mewtwo research that Naruto had brought him and vacated the area. All of the Pokémon he normally kept in his Gym were in Poke Balls that were also inside of the large briefcase he carried with him that also housed the all-important files.

When it came to disposing of the Team Rocket members onboard one of the ferries it was a simple enough task to do so and ensure that he would have a problem-free ride to the mainland. Not only him, but everyone else onboard his vessel as well. Fortunately it seemed that every ferry that left the harbors seemed to full of people, so a right many of Cinnabar Island's modest population made it off in one piece along with an even larger amount of tourists that had been thinking that the place was all about sun and fun.

Still, everything left on the island would be buried underneath ash and lava. All of the homes and businesses, even many of the Pokémon that lived there were just gone.

It was a sad sight to see such a fate befall his home, and many other shared that sentiment on the ferry, as cries of astonishment and worry over what would happen to them now.

But Blaine couldn't think about that. He'd worry about regaining some sense of normalcy in his life after he fixed a serious problem involving him. By getting off of that island he was given a chance to get himself in order and find Mewtwo before both he and it (if his deductions were correct) wound up dead by whatever linked them.

"Sorry Mister Jiraiya, Naruto, and Samuel as well." Blaine said to no one in particular, "But it's better if no one knows where I'm going or what I'm doing, just in case." If the thing with Mewtwo went wrong, the end result could wind up being worse than what had occurred on Cinnabar Island.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Konoha 13: Saffron City<span>

"Thank you for all of your help in accompanying me here the long way." A young man with close-cut black hair and sharp facial features said as he walked into the city limits of Saffron City alongside Minato. He wore a black suit with a beige turtleneck underneath, giving him a very formal look that was out of place with the appearance of a man that couldn't have been more than twenty years old, "You're an amazing human being, and even your skills with your Pokémon are incredible for someone that has only been here for a couple of months."

Minato couldn't help but shake his head and smile at the intrepid young man that was only two years older than him at twenty-five. He had been requested for a mission to accompany this man on a trip from Viridian City to Saffron City. Apparently he was supposed to be preparing himself with one last training trip before he became the Gym Leader for the Gym being built in Viridian, and he wanted to make it on foot to get in some battles and capture some interesting Pokémon in the process.

Either way, he could definitely see why this person was getting their own Gym. How he funded it to be built, Minato didn't know, but he had to be rather rich since he had no problems with paying him for an A-rank mission, "Giovanni you're talking like you're not strong yourself. Honestly, that attack you showed me that you taught a few of your oldest Pokémon, that Fissure move, that's incredible."

It split the ground the entire length of the Diglett Tunnel straight through longways. The sheer scope of even considering that such a thing was possible was incredible. That was miles of tunnel underneath the ground with a deep fissure in it the length of the entire tunnel and with a width large enough to force a Snorlax to easily fall into. He had no idea if it was always that powerful, or if there were extenuating circumstances, but moderation in his battle style was not the first thing one thought of when it came to Giovanni.

Even so, the man laughed off Minato's praises of his abilities, "That's rather funny coming from the 'Fastest Man in the World' such as yourself Minato. I can imagine how annoying it must have been travelling with me on foot when you could have sent yourself here in a matter of moments with your Hiraishin no Jutsu." Throughout the trip he seemed enamored with hearing Minato's tales about the land that he came from, their legends, and the figures of great power and the feats they were capable of.

"Heh, I actually like taking a bit of time to stop and take a look at what's around me. Teleporting everywhere gets old after awhile… it's pretty draining doing it over long distances back and forth too." Minato oftentimes tried to downplay himself as much as possible, despite the fact that by now his fame was pretty widespread as the leader of the odd assortment of mercenaries from a place that no one had ever heard of.

Despite this though, Minato decided to indulge the man slightly on things that were inconsequential, such as what his Rasengan was capable of. That was pretty much the only thing he did that could be construed as showing off. It was a great deterrent for anyone thinking that they could stiff him or his people on mission price or the parameters for a successfully completed mission to get out of paying full price.

Giovanni had paid up front though and had been perfectly amiable the entire time they traveled over the last few days. Dare he say it, Minato actually liked him quite a bit. He was knowledgeable, taught him quite a few things about Pokémon and some of the rarer kinds that he didn't know, enough to fill entire days with conversations.

But all good things had to come to an end, and as they were in Saffron City for Giovanni to attend to his necessary business it was time for Minato to leave him to his own devices as their contract was officially fulfilled, "I guess this is the end of the road so to speak." Minato said with a shrug and a smile, "It's too bad I won't be around to see your Gym when it's finished. I don't know who there is that could get a badge off of you."

"That's good because I certainly don't plan on giving many out!" Giovanni chortled, clapping Minato heartily on the back, "So does that mean you're not going to stick around for too much longer?"

"No. We've almost got all that we need to try and make our trip back home." Minato informed him, sounding quite pleased by that fact. It had been almost four months that they had been gone. Hopefully Kushina wouldn't be pissed off about how long he was gone. Or hopefully she would be, because Kushina's angry makeup sex was the absolute best, "We should be out of your hair in no time, and Kanto won't have to deal with so much property damage anymore." He joked.

Extending a hand in a good-natured manner, Giovanni offered up a smile to his free agent of a bodyguard, "Well good luck to you on your journey home. Maybe I'll see you off if I can make it down to Pallet Town when I return."

"Absolutely. Goodbye my friend." Minato bid him farewell with a half-saluting gesture before backing away a few steps and disappearing in his trademark technique, much to the surprise of everyone driving and walking around in the streets that had just seen a full-grown man disappear.

Upon Minato's departure, it took a moment as Giovanni looked around to ensure that he was no longer there, but when it was determined that he wasn't his expression changed to one of vexation as he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked along with a sneer, "All that power and it's not available for myself to learn to utilize? What a waste."

What he would do with the ability to teleport… or create spinning orbs of devastating energy in the palms of his hands.

There was nothing he could do about that though. And with Minato and his pack of Konoha underlings roaming the lands for the time being he had to put his plans to begin building his empire of powerful Pokémon and technology to garner control of Kanto for himself.

Minato had already defeated someone that he had been looking to as a possible partner in his endeavor in Fuchsia City's ambitious Gym Leader Koga. This much he knew of even though the information was closely guarded by the ninja sect that controlled the Gym.

While he had hoped to use Minato's skill and the mercenary resource that the Konoha ninjas provided, it wasn't worth the risk for the benefit of possibly having them procure things that he required to get things up and running. While he was a good-natured man with a personality that Giovanni would deem a weakness, Minato was clearly not one to suffer being fooled or used lightly, and he would never intentionally work for Giovanni's benefit once he found out what he really wanted.

Even beginning his schemes to gain power while Minato was around was just too dangerous to try. He didn't yet have the resources to warrant such a thing so brazenly. As strong as he was, far better in a fight than any other regular person, and with his exceedingly powerful Pokémon with him as well, he knew full well that a battle against Minato in a best case scenario would result in his goals coming to an end before they even began.

Thank goodness they were leaving soon. After they were gone he could begin his long-standing ambition, and Kanto… maybe even the entire Pokémon Continent, would one day belong to him.

Him and his Team Rocket.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Arcanine): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire), ExtremeSpeed (Normal), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Electric).

Hogohei (Cloyster): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal), Spike Cannon (Normal), Surf (Water).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting), Revenge (Fighting), Substitute (Normal), Hi Jump Kick, Blaze Kick (Fire).

Sazakumoru (Cubone): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock), Swords Dance (Normal), Thrash (Normal), Earthquake (Ground).

Shujinken (Misdreavus): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Double Team (Normal), Shadow Ball (Ghost), Pain Split (Normal), Thunderbolt (Electric).

Kamisori (Aerodactyl): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Ice Fang (Ice), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Thunder), Roar (Normal), Wing Attack (Flying), Crunch (Dark), Agility (Psychic), Fly (Flying), AncientPower (Rock), Iron Head (Steel), Hyper Beam (Normal).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug), Flash (Normal), Sucker Punch (Dark), Agility (Normal), Poison Jab (Poison).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison), Sludge Bomb (Poison), Screech (Normal), Flamethrower (Fire), Hidden Power (Normal), Strength (Normal).

Golbat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying), Wing Attack (Flying), Aerial Ace (Flying), Double Team (Normal), Haze (Ice), Venoshock (Poison).

Venomoth: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal), Silver Wind (Bug), Gust (Flying), Poison Fang (Poison).

Forretress: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Protect (Normal), Selfdestruct (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Take Down (Normal), Gyro Ball (Steel), Bide (Normal), Mirror Shot (Steel), Iron Defense (Steel), Flash Cannon (Steel).

Jiraiya's Current Pokémon Team

Jynx: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Lovely Kiss (Normal), Powder Snow (Ice), DoubleSlap (Normal), Ice Punch (Ice), Heart Stamp (Psychic), Avalanche (Ice), Wake-Up Slap (Fighting), Body Slam (Normal).

Lapras: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Sing (Normal), Water Gun (Water), Surf (Water), Mist (Ice), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Water Pulse (Water), Body Slam (Normal), Rain Dance (Water), Ice Beam (Ice).

* * *

><p>"<strong>Wow Kenchi? A volcano taking out Cinnabar Island like in that 90's volcano movie Dante's Peak? That's some dark-ass crap. Isn't this a Pokémon crossover?"<strong>

**Meh, I've done worse. Way worse. And yes it is, but this is the hard-ass Pokémon Adventures universe, where people and Pokémon actually die, the bad guys are strong and capable of destroying entire towns, and people get seriously messed up and in some cases left injured for long periods of time all the damn time.**

**There are other things I can say about it, but you don't care. You just care that the chapter is done and you either enjoyed the ride or you hated it, and that's cool too. **

**So until next time when I need a break between the neverending hours of recording and editing video and trying to find time to train, Kenchi out.**


	15. Showdown in Saffron

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. I _do_ want to be the very best, like NO ONE ever was.

I'd also say catching them was my real test and that training them was my cause, but I'd probably go to jail for that because I have yet to specify exactly what 'they' are… and 'they' could be anything.

**Chapter 15: Showdown in Saffron**

* * *

><p>The best place to go in order to rest, regroup, and ponder on what to do next turned out to be Fuchsia City and the Fuchsia City Pokémon Gym, as it happened to be someone's home; Janine's. It was better than anything else that Jiraiya could think of. He hadn't laid down too many roots yet, as he hadn't been in Kanto for too long to have done so.<p>

Besides, what better place was there to try and get some space from one's enemies than in a gigantic classical mansion full of traps, Pokémon, and ninjas?

But it seemed that even nature was taking the fallout from the Cinnabar Island episode gravely as the skies opened up and poured down rain, forcing everyone to stay underneath the roofs of the mansion for the entire day.

Sitting cross-legged on the wooden walkway of the shaded veranda connecting one portion of the mansion to another, Jiraiya just stared out at the rain pouring down on the lush and beautiful green lawn in front of him. He could take some time to rest as he had just gotten through working with Naruto for a few hours. A bit of time to themselves would do both him and the genin under his watchful eye some good.

Directly next to him, a tray with a teapot and two cups was set down next to him, putting a smile on Jiraiya's face as he was joined in his relaxation time by Janine's quite lovely kunoichi of an aunt. Yeah she was half his age, but she made that traditional battle dress look good. It wasn't fair that Naruto had the chibi-version to play around with and he had nothing. Finally, there was a kunoichi around that _he_ could look at and not be weird for it.

"What a dreary day." Aya said as she took a seat next to Jiraiya and began pouring them both a drink, "Overseeing the exercises indoors just isn't the same as conducting them outside. Many of the trainers that train here think that this makes it alright to slack off because of the weather."

"I noticed that a lot of your students are teenagers or older." Jiraiya pointed out, trying to be civil. If this was where they were going to be staying for the time being, it probably would have been best advised to curb his usual tendencies… at least until he was certain of when he and Naruto would be leaving for certain. Then he could hit on her and try to seal the deal, "Those that get involved in our ninja program have to do it at a young age."

"That's very rare here." Aya said as she closely observed Jiraiya taking a sip of tea. This was a real Konoha ninja? That wasn't to say that she thought that Naruto wasn't one, but he was just a cute kid. Perhaps she could get some insight on the foreign brand of ninjas, "What you've seen what is taught to outside students that have shown that they can take the program. Our ninja clan passes down its true secrets of our technique only to those in our family. Of those left, it is only Koga-oniisama, Janine, and I. Direct Koga Clan descendants are the only ones privy to the true arts of combining our strength with that of our Pokémon."

Nodding in understanding, Jiraiya watched Aya drink in a refined manner, "I've seen some of it, and I have to admit it's quite impressive. You keep your physical conditioning similar to the way we do, but you don't use chakra for your techniques. You use your Pokémon as extensions of your own abilities."

Aya let out a sly and rather coy laugh at Jiraiya breaking down the basic principle of their chosen method of fighting, "It's different from how most people choose to fight with Pokémon isn't it? But I take it you know this because you've seen Janine fight?" A nod came at her question, "If that's where you've gotten your closest look at the style, she's not as good at it as she could be. Koga is the grandmaster of the style."

Jiraiya figured as much, with the terrible technique the man used with his Pokemon to cause the volcanic eruption on Cinnabar Island, it had to be something that only a select few were privy to. Thank goodness for that.

"So it's just you three as the main practitioners because you're family?" Jiraiya asked, getting a nod from Aya, "What about Janine's mother if you don't mind me asking?"

"There's not really much to tell." Aya admitted, frowning at thinking of it despite what she said, "Midori, she trained at this Gym back when Koga was still young and being taught to take over one day. She excelled at what was instructed to the common students, and caught Koga's eye. He took an interest in her and allowed her to train more extensively with him just so he could keep her close before they finally married and had Janine."

Those were better days. Even when Koga seemed to obsess over getting stronger after his defeat to Minato, Midori seemed to be the one that was able to bring him back to being somewhat similar to the way that he used to be. And having a daughter seemed to mellow him out even further.

But that was a long time ago.

"When Koga started focusing on training Janine back when she was a little girl, Midori fell ill and her condition deteriorated quickly." Aya continued to say, "It was frightening just how fast it all happened. One day it seemed she was here training the students while Koga taught Janine, and by the end of the week it was over. Koga started getting tougher on Janine and his methods started getting darker."

"I see. Such a thing isn't so uncommon even where we come from." A lot of people died in Konoha that wound up affecting others after they had passed on. It was probably the number one thing that changed the worldview of others for better or for worse; the death of someone close to them.

"He didn't give either of them any time to mourn. I think that was his way of coping with it, but he should have let Janine be. And it all just went downhill from there. He tried to drag her down with him, and she went along with everything he said to do, every mission, every touch of training he requested of her no matter what it was. Why wouldn't she have? He was her father, her master."

"And she broke away from him because?"

"She got old enough to figure that something was wrong with what she was doing. He sent her out on more and more missions away from home by herself, she gained perspective, and one day Janine just ran away from him. That was over a year and a half ago. She stopped here some time later just long enough to tell me she was okay at one point. She didn't want him to find her until she was ready for him. That was what she said."

Despite the serious tone of the conversation, Jiraiya couldn't help but smirk at that point, "And then she managed to have the great misfortune of running into my apprentice. Now I feel bad for subjecting the poor girl to putting up with him while I went away for a bit."

That seemed to be enough to break the increasingly somber tone that had been starting to build, and Aya had to laugh a bit, "Misfortune? That's rather harsh Jiraiya-san. I think Naruto is a good boy. What a cruel thing to say."

"I'm a realist. I can be blunt at times." Jiraiya defended with a careless shrug, "For instance; I find you extremely attractive my dear. See? Realist."

While Jiraiya tried to chat up Aya in his downtime, he did have to wonder where Naruto got off to after they had finished training for the day.

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Naruto – Fuchsia City)

Naruto still had energy left as Jiraiya had chosen not to beat his entire body into one consistent bruise and left his Pokémon in similarly healthy condition, thus he decided to go out for a bit. Even if it was raining, Naruto didn't seem to have any problems with walking around. It wasn't like he was going to melt or something. He just threw on a cloak and headed out from the Gym into town.

There were many lakes, ponds, gardens, and trees in the city, extremely close to the roads and homes to the point that the proximity was seamless. It seemed like it was a very peaceful place that would be rather beautiful were it not for the current downpour.

Conveniently enough, due to the city that he was in he managed to find a shop that was able to supply him with more kunai and shuriken to restock his sets. The benefits of hanging around a city famous for the ninja that stood as its ongoing Gym Leader it seemed.

"If you wanted more tools all you had to do was let someone know at the Gym. No need to waste good money on something we already had in storage. I take that personally you know."

Blue eyes rolled and Naruto stopped just as he passed a streetlight with a girl leaning against it. He of course knew who this was, but to be followed from the Gym? He hadn't really expected that, "I just felt like it, that's all." Naruto said, as he turned in Janine's direction and saw her standing underneath an umbrella, "How'd you even know I was here?"

Janine chose to answer that without sarcasm or a joking remark, "You're not that hard to find when you're not actually trying to hide." She commented dryly, "Come on, why'd you run off? You could have waited for me if you wanted a tour… or better yet waited until the sun came out."

"Weren't you training those other ninja guys? Isn't that what you do here?"

"I was just doing Aya-obasan a favor while she took a break. It's not my job to oversee anything."

Really? Because when Naruto had looked in on the exercises she seemed to know what she was doing to an impressive degree. It was pretty funny seeing his thirteen year-old friend putting older trainers through their paces like a drill sergeant, but she did it well, and she had their respect.

She fell into step with him as he began walking down the road aimlessly, "Are you sure you aren't cut out to be the Gym Leader here? If Misty and Erika can do it I don't see why you couldn't." Misty was their age, and Erika wasn't that much older at all. Even Brock in Pewter City was pretty young, and Sabrina couldn't have been any older than nineteen, "Who else would be better?"

"That's just the thing. I'm still not ready for it." Janine said, letting out a bit of a sigh, "I don't want the Gym to fail because my father is still gone… because I don't think he's coming back, but I don't want it to fail because of me either. That's my home, and I love it too much."

"Well are you the strongest one there since your dad left?"

"Yeah. Aya-obasan won't do it because I can beat her."

"Do you know how to train the other people that go there? To teach them how to battle and everything?"

"Yeah. That's all beginner and intermediate stuff. I knew how to do everything being taught to them when I was seven."

"And you know how to run the Gym and take care of it right?"

"One more time, yeah. Even if I didn't, anything I don't know about, Aya-obasan could tell me."

"Then what's the problem?" Naruto deadpanned, stopping them outside of the walls of the Fuchsia City Pokémon Zoo. Maybe if it weren't so rainy he'd want to take a trip inside and take a look. This was more important though, "If I was strong enough to be Hokage, knew enough about being a ninja to be Hokage, and knew how to run my village as the Hokage, I'd take that position the second I got home. Because I want to be the man, and if I knew I was the best guy for the job I wouldn't try to let myself think that I wasn't."

While her first question wanted to be, 'What the hell is a Hokage?' she figured that it was some kind of ultra-important position wherever Naruto was from, akin in one way or another to Gym Leader. Naruto was trying to make a point to her, and he meant what he was saying. They were friends, so she would listen. Maybe for once Naruto would have some great advice to give?

It was understood what he was trying to get across easily enough, even if it alluded to things she happened to be unaware of, "Do you really think I can be the Fuchsia City Gym Leader?" Goodness she hoped that she didn't sound as needy as she thought she did with that question.

"Of course I do!" Naruto exclaimed spiritedly as he started listing off reasons, "Erika thinks you can be. Misty… well she doesn't really like you but she thinks so too. Brock thought you were too much of an advantage to me to be in my corner during our battle before I even knew what I do about you now. I could keep going, but the point is that I don't just think you can, I know you can!"

Wow, Janine figured that the entire purpose behind Naruto's words would circle around to that, but it was still a bit startling to hear such resolute confidence in her. Her cheeks actually heated up bashfully once he had finished speaking.

They had only known each other for a few months, so where did that come from?

With a good-natured grin, Naruto kept on walking, getting Janine to hurry up a bit to keep pace with him, "Even Ero-sennin trusted you to fight with him on Cinnabar Island. The first time we were ever in a battle together he told me to stay out of the way. So don't be so down on yourself."

"Thank you Babyface." She still wasn't sure, but at least there were people that believed she could pull it off. Her aunt, most of her Gym, and her travelling companion did even if she herself didn't, "So now what?"

"Now? Now we fly into Saffron City and confront Sabrina just as soon as we can." He would have done it sooner, but Jiraiya had been keeping a watchful eye on him and taking care in training him for the last few days. As grateful as Naruto was for the consideration, a few days of training wasn't going to make much of a difference at this stage in the game, "I'm tired of this. Tired of Team Rocket. Let's finish this."

Janine wasn't really surprised. Nor was she particularly against the idea. She was sick of Team Rocket and her father getting the jump on them. When they were the ones that had the element of surprise they seemed to be able to dictate the pace of the conflict better, which led to several victories in the past over the nefarious organization.

It sounded good to her.

A nefarious little smirk found its way to her face as she thought about it. Oh how she would love to just drop in on Sabrina and show her that she wasn't as tough as she thought she was. Apparently the sentiment was infectious, because Naruto wasn't doing too well at hiding his own delight at the thought of going after the bad guys either.

They really did get along better than they thought they did.

XxX

(A Short While Later – Fuchsia City Pokémon Gym)

Upon returning to the mansion grounds of the Gym, both Naruto and Janine split off for the time being. She went around to the back to make sure that there wasn't anything else she needed to do for the rest of the day, and Naruto meant to go to the room set aside to be his so that he could put away his purchases from town.

Jiraiya wasn't there, and Naruto had been informed by others around the Gym that he had to run into town and find a phone to get into contact with Professor Oak on what had transpired on Cinnabar Island.

He didn't really expect to run into someone that he knew upon returning, but lo and behold waiting in the main parlor of the area where the live-in students and those that ran the facility resided, Naruto came across someone he had seen more than a few times in Kanto.

That spiky auburn hair was unmistakable.

"Blue?" Naruto said questioningly as he walked into the basically empty room and saw the young man sitting on the floor serenely. Was he meditating? What did that guy know about meditating?

"I was expecting the ninja girl that hangs around with you." Blue said calmly, opening his eyes and turning around to face Naruto before standing up, "She's the one I really came here to see." Why the hell did he want to see Janine? He had only seen her when they had all been in Lavender Town, and she couldn't have said more than two sentences before they left, "She is Koga's daughter isn't she?"

Nothing good ever happened when someone asked whether or not somebody was related to somebody else. It was like a rule, "What about it? Look, whatever he's doing she doesn't have anything to do with it. We're actually fighting to stop him. Just as soon as we're able we're going to Saffron City to put an end to this crap."

"You're fighting Team Rocket?" Blue asked with a raised eyebrow as if he didn't believe it, "And you think you can win against them?"

As far as he knew, all Naruto had going for him was some ridiculous kind of vitality that let him reach Viridian City in almost no time. That and the daughter of one of the rogue Gym Leaders on his side. But how much could that really account for?

He didn't even consider Red to be good enough to help him against them, what with Red's constant hero-complex, and the overconfidence of his fellow Pallet Town native didn't help either. Naruto had the confidence factor turned up to 11, and he hadn't even been assisted by Naruto before the way Red had helped him in Pokémon Tower.

"No way. Those people are killers. They'll turn you inside out." Blue said, shaking his head. He didn't get the loud response disputing anything the way that he expected Naruto would have given him, and that in of itself was rather surprising.

Naruto didn't rise to the statement because it wasn't as if it were untrue. And it wasn't as if Blue happened to be outright doubting what he could do. First of all he had no clue what Naruto's capabilities were, because all he knew was that he was some kid from a completely different continent. Second of all, he had a perfectly logical reason to think that way even if he didn't know he did.

The last two times Naruto had run up against them he had gotten burned so to speak, "I know… I've seen it." Naruto told Blue, an angry look on his face at the thought of what he'd seen them do, "They set off a volcano on Cinnabar Island just to kill someone that betrayed them. It destroyed the town there." For once, the stoic expression on Blue's face fell to that of shock.

His own grandfather's lab had been taken out in Pallet Town and Professor Oak had been kidnapped, something hard to believe due to how talented the man had been as a trainer in his youth. The fact that the entire building was destroyed before he was taken probably told a major story there.

"Look, this is my fight." Blue said seriously, "They took my grandfather, they're trying to get their dirty claws on my town and mess it up. This is my business. I'll say it once; stay out of the battle." As he walked past Naruto to leave, all Naruto did was stand there and let him leave.

No, it wasn't just Blue's business. It might have been before, but that was until all of those people on Cinnabar had suffered, before Janine's father Koga looked her right in the eyes and destroyed that place. And it wasn't like Naruto didn't like Professor Oak either. That old man had been a huge help, they'd stayed in constant contact since Naruto had departed Pallet Town, and Naruto considered him a friend.

So while Blue might have had a grievance, there wasn't anything he could say that would make it alright to just sit back when Naruto knew what was going on and knew that he could do something about it.

Naruto didn't even need to say anything to Blue to let him know that he wasn't going to listen. His face and his eyes told the whole story.

As if he needed Blue's permission to do something. Local or not, he wasn't the only one that had his toes stepped on so to speak.

XxX

(With Jiraiya – The Next Morning)

It had been quite a long day and night for Jiraiya, as he'd tried and failed to reach Professor Oak by phone several times in town before finally giving up on it, but he hadn't seen Naruto in a while since he ended their training for the day. Even at night, late as it was when he had gotten back, he hadn't seen the little jerk puttering around anywhere.

It was weird. He'd asked around about him and some of the attendants of the Gym said that they'd seen him walking around.

He didn't know why he was suspicious, but something just didn't feel right. And why couldn't he find the brat? He didn't even show up for dinner! Neither did Janine as a matter of fact and come to think of it he hadn't seen her either in a good stretch of time.

Jiraiya's mind then dropped to the gutter and stayed there before he quickly pointed out to himself that Naruto; a.) was not nearly debonair enough to manage to pull something like that off with a kunoichi… any kunoichi, b.) was too young to know what to do with a girl even if he did have her, and c.) was caught in a associational situation with Janine where the two would be more likely to try and kill each other than to try and get any friendlier.

Hence why by morning the next day he figured that he had given him enough of the benefit of the doubt and enough of a grace period on being shifty, and hastily headed to Naruto's room to know for certain what exactly was up.

He had to wake him up so that they could start early training anyway.

Upon opening the door he breathed a bit of a sigh of relief when he found an orange-clad boy laying sprawled out on his back on the bed in the room. But then he started to pick up other things as well. Such as the fact that Naruto was fully dressed with only his sandals off per the house customs, Naruto's travel backpack not being there, and that there was a note clutched in the hand set on the chest of the sleeping Naruto lying there.

Shit, a note. No good news ever came from a note that someone felt they had to write him. Ever.

Taking a deep breath beforehand, Jiraiya reached forward and snatched the paper from Naruto who didn't even wake up, instead merely sleepily rolling over onto his belly to continue slumbering.

_Dear Ero-sennin,_

_If you're reading this, that means that you didn't manage to catch me before I left. There was some kid here that I knew, and I decided that I'm sick of waiting around. We already know where the bad guys are, so there's no reason not to go and deal with them before other people get hurt right? I would have told you… maybe. But it's not important because you weren't here, you were in town, and we didn't have time to go look for you._

_Don't worry about a thing though. It's alright. We're strong enough to get this done, you can count on that, so you can just go back to looking at Janine's aunt's butt like you've been doing ever since we got here. Yes we've both seen you doing it and you're lucky we don't care that much._

_It probably wouldn't have worked taking you with us anyway since we're moving fast, unless you like being carried in Kamisori's talons like the catch of the day._

_Either way, we'll be back soon._

_The future Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, Uzumaki Naruto_

_P.S. It's not so nice when you find things out after the fact through a damn letter is it?_

'That little bastard ditched me?' Jiraiya thought to himself, crumbling the paper up after he finished reading. He then stared down at the kid in the bed, 'Which means that this is a clone.'

He needed to get a map, and he needed to figure out the fastest way to Saffron City double-time. Stupid brat and that damn flying dinosaur Pokémon of his. If he'd been flying since yesterday afternoon he was probably there by now.

If Naruto didn't get himself killed, Jiraiya was going to do it after he found him. But first…

A rather vengeful Jiraiya loaded up a punch and aimed it straight at the clone of Naruto's head before letting it fly. It wasn't the real thing, and it wasn't awake to cower in fear, but until he found the original and busted his ass instead it would have to do.

Connecting with the skull before it gave way to a puff of smoke and vanished, Jiraiya hoped that Naruto could feel that.

XxX

(With Naruto – Skies Near Saffron City)

From her place holding onto Naruto from behind on his Aerodactyl, Janine noticed Naruto wince and tighten up for some reason. Maybe he got something in his eye? She didn't know, "What's the matter Babyface?"

"Ero-sennin knows we're gone." Naruto told her, somehow knowing for sure that such a thing was the case. He hadn't been aware of it before because he had never used his clones for something aside from fighting, but he was aware that it was gone now, and that it had been sleeping before its rude dispelling, "Took him long enough."

All Janine did was raise her eyebrow questioningly, but she didn't say a word. Naruto was strange enough, so finding out that he somehow knew such a thing from as far away as they were from the Gym probably wouldn't have surprised her very much, "It did didn't it? We've been gone for almost sixteen hours by now. When did he get back?"

Naruto's clone probably did a better job of deflecting scrutiny than either of them figured it would.

Either way it was nearing time to finish things with Team Rocket. Looking down they saw one of the gatehouses where they had been prevented from entering Saffron City on all sides and Naruto spared it a middle finger for the hassle it caused them in the past. It was truthfully pretty sweet to pass over it without any jackass guards to try and bust them.

The ability to fly was officially the coolest thing he had going for him at the moment.

The sight of the city itself when they finally came upon it was just something amazing. The amount of land that it took up, forcing them to go around the outskirts of three times in the past, should have told him this, but it was still incredible to see up close. The urban sprawl was three times the size of the entire building setup of Konoha, and that wasn't even taking into account the height of the skyscrapers themselves.

He'd only ever seen one building as high as the vast majority of Saffron's in Konoha. Talk about expanding one's horizons.

…And then they hit a literal wall of sorts.

Kamisori was prevented from going any further when his body collided with an invisible force in midair that almost knocked him and his pair of passengers from the sky. He recovered amicably enough and shook himself off with a confused screech, hovering in the air as he tentatively tried to move forward again to no avail.

"What the hell?" Naruto questioned, rubbing his head from the sudden collision with seemingly nothing, "What's going on?"

"…This seems familiar." Janine stated flatly, reaching around on her person before throwing a shuriken forward only for it to bounce off of the air, "I know what this is. It's a Barrier." In the battle on Cinnabar Island she had enough trouble finding a way to deal with it when she fought Sabrina, "Sabrina's Mr. Mime has the strongest Barrier I've ever seen. I don't think we can break it."

It was covering the entire city, so it couldn't have been weak. Talk about specialized training. According to Janine, Sabrina's Mr. Mime never attempted a single attack, only focusing on defense. If this was the highest degree of that defense it was a smart move.

Kamisori flew higher to try and give Naruto a better look around while he dug around in his supply pouch with a frown, "I need to make more explosive tags, but I don't think that would do anything here anyway… even if I had another explosive tag ball."

Come on, they couldn't get held up here. They were right there. They had more proof than ever that this was the base of operations for Team Rocket, and they were flying right over the target city.

"We can do this." Janine said resolutely as she tried to think of what they could do to get past it, "You and I are two smart ninjas." A stray Murkrow flying through the sky seemed to let out a few mocking caws at the thought of Naruto being smart, "…Well, we're both pretty resourceful." She then said, amending her previous statement.

In the meantime, Kamisori landed on the ground and stretched out his wings before Naruto called him back into his Poke Ball. There wasn't any need for flying. They were there, they just couldn't get in.

Janine sat down and thought while Naruto did the same, pacing about as he did so. He punched at the invisible wall but it didn't give in the slightest and actually hurt his fist more than anything else.

"Yoo-hoo!" Wait, they knew that voice. It had been a while, but when someone steals a large sack of Moon Stones from you when you first meet them it's kind of hard to forget who they are, "Hey! You guys! I actually found more people!"

Naruto looked up to see Green floating down toward them holding on her pumped up Jigglypuff around a leg until she could touch down on the ground. Upon hearing her voice, Janine almost instantly started gnashing her teeth. She wasn't going to try speaking to the girl, but she was going to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn't try to rob them again.

At that moment, Naruto felt like his brain was caught in a loop as he saw a figure that looked a lot like Kamisori flying through the air before it came to a landing right by where Green had landed, only with Red jumping off of its back. He had an Aerodactyl too. Well that was… fun.

Naruto was confident that his was probably better though.

"Hey, it's Naruto and ninja-girl." Red said as he recalled his own Aerodactyl and walked up to the party of shinobi and kunoichi while Janine wondered why he didn't remember her name when she was the one that he had battled against in the past, "What are you two doing here?"

Green smiled and sidled up next to Naruto, even when he took one great step away from her to prevent being caught off-guard by her again while she spoke to Red, "You know these two as well handsome? Well isn't that great? Everybody knows each other." She thumped Naruto one good time on the chest for emphasis, "You should know that this guy is something of a Team Rocket buster. That base of theirs in Celadon City under the casino? He busted it up."

Or at least she assumed he did. After telling Janine where it was she got as far away from that location as she could. When the panic died down, the Rocket Game Corner lay in ruins and Erika's followers were mopping up what was left of Team Rocket's influence in the city.

Granted, she didn't see either of them after that episode, and didn't know Celadon City's Gym Leader nearly well enough to coax the information out of her as to where they went if she had even asked her, but it seemed as if all of the destruction had occurred before anyone else had arrived from the outside. Thus she probably would have put her money on Naruto being directly responsible for tearing a massive game house almost in half.

Either way, selling Naruto's merits to Red who she also knew was damnably good at what he did could only help her in getting inside of Saffron City so that she could get what she wanted.

"That's awesome." Red commented, pointing in the sky where a large orange winged dragon-looking Pokémon could be seen trying to find a weak angle on the barrier somewhere, "Blue's being a jerk and thinks that it's okay to handle this himself, so I don't think he's going to come down here and join up with us."

That was great and all since they had a group, even if it included Green, but there was still the gigantic problem of the big-ass barrier covering the town.

There had to be something.

Doing her best to ignore Green trying to run whatever game she had going with Naruto and Red, instead thinking back to the battle on the volcano, Janine had busted the ground beneath her enemies to render the barriers useless. She knew that she had because Sabrina had stopped using her Mr. Mime after she had managed to circumvent the technique. But she couldn't break enough of the ground here to make the barrier usele-.

Janine quickly knocked Green away from Naruto and grabbed his shoulders, "Naruto, call out Ranbouen and have him burrow underneath the barrier!" She gave him one great shake that rattled his brain in his head, "It's a dome, not a sphere. We can't go over it or through it, but it doesn't protect anything from underneath!"

It sounded obvious, but Naruto's Pokémon was the only one that knew Dig to do something about it. Without wasting another second, Naruto called forth his Arcanine and issued his command, "Ranbouen, use Dig and make us a way underneath the invisible wall blocking our way into the city."

Right before everyone's eyes, the powerful-looking Pokémon started tossing up dirt beneath his claws and carving out a large hole into the ground where he popped up on the other side, awaiting his master Naruto and his next orders while Naruto gestured proudly to the hole for everyone to use.

"There you go." Naruto said with a big grin on his face and his hand held out, "Welcome to Saffron City expressway." Red grinned as well and spared him a high-five before jumping down into the hole and emerging moments later on the other side.

With a roll of her eyes, Janine slapped his hand back and forth several times in a bit of an elaborate and practiced handshake before bumping his hip with hers and jumping down after Red.

The only one that remained standing outside was Green who seemed to look rather dubious at the way in that had been figured, "You want me to go down through that hole?" Naruto's nod only made her frown, "Look, I know my dress is black, but that kind of dirt on these clothes-. Hey, wait!"

Kicking and pounding on Naruto's back in vain, she still wound up going down the hole being carried the entire way by Naruto, "Blue, get your ass down here if you're coming!" He shouted up into the air, popping his head out of the hole long enough to get his message across to the airborne grandson of Professor Oak.

As he held onto his Charizard in the air, Blue was glad he was so high up or everyone would have seen his face and his eye twitching in annoyance. Not only did Red show up after he'd explicitly told him not to back in Pallet Town, but there was that Green girl that he just figured was there for her own reasons.

And then there was Naruto and Janine, both of which Blue couldn't see how either of them had a stake in any of this. Sure, Koga was Janine's father, but other than that, what?

It was probably his fault for thinking that he could find the man at what was supposedly his Gym in Fuchsia City. Maybe if he hadn't gone there he wouldn't have the extra baggage with him that there currently was.

Still though, even if he didn't like Naruto, Blue had to admit that Dig was a seriously useful move to wind up teaching an Arcanine, and he was surprised that he himself hadn't managed to teach that to any of his Pokémon yet. Basic or not, it paid off there.

He'd never admit that aloud of course. That would run the risk of actually giving praise to the weird kid from across the ocean, and he couldn't do something like that.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Saffron City Gym)

One… two… three… four… and five.

The direct mental contact Sabrina had with her Mr. Mime due to meditating told her that five human beings had managed to somehow pass through her Pokémon's barrier over the city, or underneath it to be specific.

Well it was time to drop the cover over the city. If she were to make a wager, she already knew who was there. There had only been a handful of people giving Team Rocket fits all over Kanto, and none of them would have been particularly afraid to show up and initiate a showdown.

On second thought, she'd keep the barrier up.

This time they wouldn't be getting away or leaving. This was going to be to the finish.

XxX

(With Jiraiya – Fuchsia City Gym)

"I'm going to drag that brat back here and-!" Jiraiya started to say, pacing around in one of the lush courtyards of the mansion as he perused over a map, "Damn it, no matter which way I look at it'll still take me a day to make it to Saffron even going all out!"

He really did it this time. This trip was meant to teach him a lesson, to help him prepare for the powerful foes that would surely await him once he made it back to Konoha. It was not an excuse for Naruto to go off and play the hero in a place that they barely knew anything about.

Sure, he was getting stronger and it was already showing, but strong enough to take on a national organization like the one he currently found himself running up against? If Jiraiya went back home without Naruto due to him getting killed Tsunade was going to kill him in turn. That was just the way it was going to be.

It didn't take Aya long to come across Jiraiya, as many of the others that trained and worked at the Gym had gone to tell her that he seemed to be in a rarely foul mood, "I assume you realize that your student is gone?"

"You knew they left?"

"Of course I did. Where else would Janine have possibly gone?" Aya replied, hands set on her hips as she walked over to Jiraiya, "I simply didn't tell you because you had your own things to worry about yesterday. That much was clear from when we were talking." Why else would he have been staring at the rain? He didn't seem to be the type for that at all, "It's something they've both decided on doing, so who am I to stop them? I hold no responsibility over her."

She was the girl's aunt, but she had never been her guardian. At most Aya had been something of a port in the storm after Janine had fled from Koga. A place of advice and support. How could she have control over someone more talented than her just because she was older?

Jiraiya wanted to be angry, but he found himself quickly cooling off quicker than he ever thought that he would. No, it was not the ideal situation for the youngster to be involved in, but this trip was not to coddle Naruto. It was to toughen him up. Nothing got you tougher than trial by fire… pending survival of said trial of course.

He could also honestly say that when he was Naruto's age he probably would have tried to do the exact same thing in the same scenario if he could have gotten away with it.

A part of him still wanted to rush off to Saffron City to see if he could make it there just in case he was needed, but he quickly squashed any notion of doing such a thing, "…The training wheels have to come off eventually huh?"

Training a student during a time of peace was way different than doing it during the wartimes of the Elemental Nations. For some reason it made him even more of a worry-wart than ever. Aya smiled and placed a hand on the large sage's shoulder, "I wouldn't worry Jiraiya-san. If your student is anything like his father that I've heard stories of I don't think you'll have anything to worry about."

"Ha! Honestly, other than the looks, that kid's nothing like his old man." Jiraiya commented with a barking laugh, "He's worse. He's more like his mother, and that should make anyone he fights afraid just because of that."

He was still definitely going to ring Naruto's bell with a wooden-sandaled kick when he dragged himself back to the Gym though. It was his prerogative as sensei. It was all just tough love.

XxX

(Center of Saffron City – Silph Co. Building)

The biggest building at the center of the city seemed as good a place as any to start looking when it came to Blue searching for his grandfather Professor Oak. The growing number of Team Rocket members in uniform patrolling the streets seemed to give credence to that mindset.

'That's where I'd go if I had the ability to take over an entire town.' Blue thought to himself as he took great care moving from alleys and back streets to reach the headquarters of the most influential company in Kanto and perhaps the entire continent, 'Having control of Silph would give someone control of everything in Saffron City, which is probably why they were able to close it off so easily.'

Not just that, but getting money from Silph would fund anything Team Rocket wanted to do indefinitely, and the inventions from Silph Co. and their scientists were amazing. What Team Rocket didn't choose to mass produce and sell, they could keep for their own private use.

Before he could reach the front of the building though, Blue found himself quickly grabbed and pulled off of the streets with his mouth covered. The amount of martial arts training he had undergone in his youth kicked in, and he tried to break free and throw his attacker over his shoulder, but whoever had him was clearly superior to him not just in positioning but in skill as well.

The back of his knee was kicked out, dropping him down to one leg to stand on before his face was roughly pushed against a brick wall, "Jeez, this is what I get for trying to help you out before you get yourself overrun?" Wait, that voice was the Janine girl. Once his body seemed to calm down, he was allowed to turn around and get a view of a disguised Janine in a Team Rocket Grunt female uniform, complete with beret, "I could have just used you as a distraction when you started a fight."

Once he was let go, Blue got back up and glared at the kunoichi who seemed quite pleased that she was able to snag some Team Rocket garb to masquerade in, "What are you doing here? Your friend went the complete other way."

It was true. After getting through the barrier, there was a small gameplanning session that Blue just blew off as he stormed his way to the epicenter of Saffron City's business. Even though he left quickly, he still hung around long enough to hear that the plan was to shut down that damn barrier that they assumed would be based around the Gym of the city.

Blue figured that they would all be making that move together, but here he stood with one of the chief peoples he figured would be taking the semi-tactical approach.

Janine rolled her eyes at Blue's questioning, "Look, splitting up isn't exactly the best idea, but more than three of us travelling to one place is overkill. So I volunteered to look for you and lucky me, you were going the exact way I was planning on going myself."

Ah, so she came to a similar conclusion as him. Either Silph Co. had its president being held hostage or he was in on the Team Rocket conspiracy as well. Either way, this was an important place in the enemy network.

His thoughts were disrupted when a bundle of Team Rocket clothes were thrown at his face. Another pilfered outfit of sorts; a male version. Blue raised a silent eyebrow and Janine took it upon herself to answer him, "It's for you. Do you really want to run around on the inside of that building without it and get caught?"

As much as the thought of dressing up as a Team Rocket stooge made his skin crawl, he had to admit that the career kunoichi had a bit of a point. He wasn't just going in there to kick some ass, he had to find out where Professor Oak was. Okay, so he would wear the stupid uniform and hat if it got him in with no hassle.

Looking up from the clothes, he glared at Janine a bit who was still watching and apparently waiting on him to make a decision, "Do you mind? I'm not changing clothes in front of you."

He didn't even like these people. He'd be damned if any of them would see him in his skivvies without a hell of an argument justifying why first.

"Seriously?" Janine replied, seemingly amused at the thought of her trying to ogle Blue. Maybe if he got some muscle tone first there'd be more of a chance of that happening. If she made fun of Naruto for being a bit spindly she'd have to get her digs in at Blue at some point today, he was even leaner. But not right now, "Fine. Hurry up and I'll keep a lookout."

That was the price that came with working with people that weren't trained in some way as ninjas, they couldn't change on a dime if they needed to.

For some reason, Janine had the oddest sense that someone was watching her, but there wasn't anyone around that could possibly see them. She knew full well how to check for anything spying on them, and she wasn't picking up a thing.

Even if there just so happened to be more than one of them together in each group, splitting up seriously wasn't the best idea…

XxX

(Northern End of Saffron City – With Naruto, Red, and Green)

The further in they went, the more it seemed like Saffron City was on some kind of military lockdown. There was no one on the streets other than Team Rocket members, hence why Naruto was Henged into Team Rocket gear and why Green had her Ditto transform into similarly themed apparel for her.

But that still left poor Red with no way to go incognito.

Ever the quick thinker though, something that she was infamous for amongst her current company, Green had a way to get through town without being set upon by the enemy hordes.

A quite displeased Red was guided down the street, bound entirely around his arms and torso by rope as if he were the captive of two Team Rocket members taking him somewhere to be processed and held, "This sucks… I should have went after Blue."

"You would have been seen either way." Green pointed out with an infuriatingly sweet smile on her face, "At least this way we don't have to fight anyone yet. Not until we're ready."

'As if you're actually going to do any fighting when we actually do find someone.' Both Naruto and Red thought simultaneously, sharing a similar look before Naruto spoke up, "How'd you meet her?"

"She conned me into buying all kinds of fake crap that was supposed to power up my Pokémon." Red said, bringing up his first run-in with Green, "I caught her and got my money back, but then she stole the badges that I had on me. It took a while before she gave them back."

Naruto hummed thoughtfully, shaking his head as he did so, "Really? She put me to sleep and stole a big sack of Moon Stones that I was going to sell for money. Then she almost made me drown until I saved myself, caught her, and took them back."

Funny how both of them met her via her trying to screw them both over.

Of course they'd remember how she almost managed to con them out of their possessions. Green never figured that they would wind up comparing their thief stories though. She most certainly didn't need them mistrusting her more than they already did, "That's all in the past! We need to band together. We all want the same thing here after all."

Meh, for now she was close enough to being right that the topic could drop, especially since they had to walk past a few Team Rocket members on the street. To sell it, Naruto put on his best sneer as they walked past these folks who seemed to smirk and glower at the 'captured' Red for his misfortune.

It worked to get them past and onward to the next street where Green pulled Naruto and Red to a stop.

"Wait." She said, looking down an extremely long street that she simply couldn't see to the end of, "You're going to the Saffron Gym, right?" Naruto nodded in return to the question, "And you're just going to attack head-on? Just walk in off of the street and challenge her to a duel?"

"No, of course not." In an ideal world, Naruto would create a diversion at the front door, possibly of an epic variety that they would write mythology about, and would sneak in elsewhere, make it to Sabrina's inner sanctum, plant a sharp metal object somewhere vital, do a short victory dance over her fresh corpse, end the barrier over the town, and leave to find Blue and Janine, "But I'm not gonna be able to sneak up on Sabrina or trick her without a hell of a move."

Because the bitch was psychic, and she'd know they were coming for sure if she didn't already know.

Red shrugged his still bound shoulders, sorely wishing he could scratch his head beneath his cap at the moment. God all of this high tension made him itchy, "Well we've gotta try, right? It doesn't make any sense not to."

Hence why Green proceeded to drag them through the nearly finished construction site of some sort of train station, "Right. We'll try and get in through the back somehow. Anything's better than the front. We've got to get off street though." She couldn't plot at her maximum effectiveness when she felt like one mistake would end up with her getting attacked by every bad guy in town.

The sizeable interior of the train station was actually pretty impressive, but very empty. It seemed like it was supposed to be a crown jewel of sorts for the city once it was finished. Marble planters, big fountains in the center of the lobby… all empty.

"What is this place supposed to be?" Naruto had seen trains before of course, not many but enough to know what they were. He hadn't particularly seen train stations of that sort of magnitude in his life.

Everyone looked around at their current surroundings, being that the move to go inside had been a spur of the moment thing, "Silph Co. was building a Magnet Train to connect Kanto to Johto, because otherwise the trip is a serious pain in the ass." She definitely knew that from personal experience, "…They were thinking of doing it in more places too if this one worked out and the technology allowed for it." Green explained, her voice echoing a bit in the vast building, "But it's definitely under delay now."

For how long she didn't know, and how far along they were before they had to put a stop to it she had no idea of either. She was rather well plugged into Kanto's info network, but Saffron had been cut off for months at this point.

Red didn't feel right, and it wasn't just because he was still tied up, "Can you guys hear that?" He asked, getting everyone to stop walking and speaking so that they could listen out, "You just said there's a delay. Well I think I feel power running through here."

Naruto blinked and kneeled down to place a hand on the ground where he could feel a whirring kind of sensation, "He's right. That shouldn't be right should it?"

Now he definitely wasn't some kind of electrician, but buildings under construction where nobody was working shouldn't have had power running through them. Especially enough power to the point that he could feel through the floor that it was running.

Before anyone else could speculate about what was going on, loud, strong laughter echoed through the train station lobby, "This is just great. It's the kid from Vermillion City, and he switched up his posse from just Koga's daughter." Oh… that voice, "I was hoping I'd run into you again junior."

Lt. Surge.

Naruto's fists tightened at his side and he walked forward in the direction that he could hear the voice coming from, "Come out and fight then tough guy! Me and Janine kicked your ass the first time when you had thirty Magnemites wearing us down beforehand. Well this time there are three of us. You don't have a chance!"

"Who's hiding runt? I'm waiting right here for you. I want you to see this up close and personal."

In the face of Surge's complete confidence, the newly formed group looked at each other tentatively before Naruto and Red bravely chose to move forward. Green tried to step back and away from the scene, but Naruto grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. She was not bandying her way out of this one by herself.

They all hopped down into the pit that contained the tracks and heard Surge's chuckling echoing from the underground tunnel to the west. Naruto remembered the lessons that he'd been taught from the last battle with the electric-type Gym Leader.

-No metal objects; keep the kunai and shuriken out of the open until the fight was over or he'd just get shocked.

-Surge had more muscle than him, thus he couldn't overpower him up close. Speed would be the killer against him.

-Sazakumoru would be his go-to due to her being a ground-type Cubone. Hopefully this time around he'd gotten her to toughen up a bit more.

…All of that proceeded to go out the window when they actually made it down the tunnel to where Lt. Surge had been waiting.

They had been following a yellow light that they had just figured to be industrial work lights for the tunnel, but they were dead wrong. The light was one thing and one thing only, and it wasn't some inanimate light. Of all things, it was a captured Zapdos, connected to some kind of specialized generator, pushing out electricity from its body just as easily as air from its lungs.

Red eloquently summed up the entire situation well enough for all three of them, "…What the fuck?"

"Like it?" With a laugh, Lt. Surge made his presence known. A sweeping gesture showed off one of Team Rocket's captures of the legendary three birds of Kanto, "Blaine really did some good work for us before he had a change of heart and we had to toast him with the rest of Cinnabar Island." The reminder of the brutal methods of the criminal organization raised the hairs on the back of Naruto's neck, "Bear witness to an electric Pokémon so powerful it can form thunderstorms by flapping its wings!"

"What are you doing with it?" Naruto asked heatedly. They weren't using it to fight the way that they had used Moltres and Articuno, and there wasn't a collar on it that they could use to break it from control like the other two had.

"Unlimited power." Surge said proudly, "After we perfect the technology we'll destroy the Power Plant and force everyone in Kanto to accept our power from the limitless natural source of Zapdos. We'll find a way to breed it or clone it and we'll do the same in Johto, and from there who knows? It's a neverending way to make a profit!"

Well that was just great. First an all-powerful ice-bird that could flash freeze an entire mansion's property in a second, then a firebird that could heal itself from any kind of damage by immersing itself in a damn volcano, and now a thunderbird that had an unlimited supply of electricity to provide as long as it was kept healthy.

And of course Surge would be the one that had no problems with keeping it cooped up and trapped the way that it was. He'd been catching Pokémon that already belonged to others so that he could smuggle them out of Vermillion City.

He clearly didn't have a problem with using the most despicable methods he could against living things in order to benefit. But Naruto felt the need to get a dig in at the overconfident man, "Nice suit douche."

Lt. Surge cackled again at Naruto's shot at his latest fashion statement. He wore a complete rubber suit underneath his usual fatigues and a belt and a pair of bandoliers holding as many Voltorbs as they could carry. On his shoulders he had a pair of Magnemites, and in his hand he had a bazooka seemingly connected to his belt and bandoliers.

All of this was connected by wires to a pack on his back that had even more wires running from it to the generator that Zapdos was connected to.

"I thought to myself after I lost to you… without your freak powers you wouldn't have beaten me. I'm bigger, I'm smarter, I'm stronger." Surge boasted, pointing a thumb at himself, "Just because you're some kind of oddity you managed to get the job done. Well I took a page out of ninja-man's book. Now not only can I fry you with Pokémon in battle as my weapons, I _am_ a weapon! So take your best shot!" He commanded of Naruto, spreading his arms out wide to invite him in.

As if he hadn't been angry enough, Naruto was now being looked down upon by someone he had managed to beat to a bloody pulp in the past. If he wanted a second helping of it, no Pokémon hanger-ons would be able to stop what he'd have coming, "Fine!" Naruto formed a clone and charged at Lt. Surge while gathering their chakra in a spinning ball in between the two of them, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

A grinning Lt. Surge let him get within strike range and didn't move an inch, "Sonic Boom!"

The two Magnemites on his shoulders unleashed a wave of forceful sound that took the form of a wall that caught Naruto and stopped him cold just before he could reach Lt. Surge and Rasengan his guts all over the tunnel again.

Naruto got pushed right back to his starting position where he landed in a sliding crouch. Someone learned some new tricks. So that just meant something new that he had to find his way past. That was just alright with him.

"You won't touch me without getting shocked or blown out of your stupid little sandals." He pointed at Naruto and then over to Red and Green, "You've been big enough pains in Team Rocket's side for long enough. You two just love playing hero, and one of you thinks that she can get away with stealing our secrets on Pokémon for herself. You're all going to die here."

"Ha!" Red was a little put off by Naruto thinking that a direct attack, even with that weird blue ball of his, would work, but they still had numbers on their side and then some, "It's still three-on-one you ass! You can't beat all of us!"

"Really? Because the girl looks like she's about to pass out and I haven't even done anything yet."

And indeed, Green looked absolutely petrified at something in there. Following the path of her eyes they were locked solely on the captured Zapdos, and granted it was a very intimidating sight and would have been even if tens of thousands of volts of electricity hadn't been flying off of it at the moment, but to be frozen stiff at the sight of it?

"What's wrong with her?" Red asked, not understanding what was going on with her either, "She didn't get hit with anything to make her like that did she?"

No, she'd just been standing there with them the entire time. Thief that screwed them both over at one time or another or not, she was on their side for this, and seeing her in the midst of a mental breakdown for a reason that they had no idea about was troubling to say the very least.

A bark of more laughter came from Lt. Surge as he pulled out an actual Poke Ball and released the creature within, "If that's all it takes to stun you brats into inaction I won't even have to test this suit out to win! Magneton!" From the Poke Ball came what appeared to be three larger Magnemites bonded together to form one Pokémon, and Surge wasn't hesitant to put it into immediate action, "Magnet Bomb!"

From the three magnets set up on different sections of its body, Magneton formed a silver ball of energy that it fired out at the three youngsters. Red managed to dive away while Naruto had to pick up Green before doing so, thus all of them were caught in something of an explosion once the energy balls landed at the ground nearby.

Naruto bumped the back of his head on the wall of the train tunnel, while Red's back was slammed into one of the railings of the intended Magnet Train, "Oh man…" Naruto said as he stood up and took Green with him, "That could have been worse." He commented, though Green was still quaking, unable to look away from Zapdos, "Red… are you dead over there?"

"No…" The Pallet Town trainer replied miserably, "I wish you guys hadn't tied me up though. Or that you'd at least have cut me loose when we saw this guy."

"I didn't do it that tightly, just enough to make it look good." Naruto said, still smarting at being blown into a solid wall. If he'd taken out anything to cut Red free with either he'd have been shocked the second Surge saw a glint of metal to aim at. He was taking a chance just by still wearing his headband, "Just shake a bit and it'll come off."

Red blinked vapidly before quickly worming his way out of Naruto's rope and laughing to himself victoriously, "Alright, if this chump wants to fight so bad I'll give him one!" He turned and pointed down the way that they had come through the tunnel, "You should take Green and get her out of here. I can beat this guy myself."

"No way!" Naruto argued in return, using Zapdos as evidence, "I don't know just what he's doing with that thing, but those legendary birds are crazy strong! If he lets it loose and brings it into the fight it'll fry you in no time! We've got to beat him together!" And even then, stuck in that tunnel, there wasn't particularly a good chance that they'd pull it off.

"No." Red shook his head in disagreement to Naruto's spirited rebuttal, "No, if he was going to use Zapdos to fight he would have done it from the start. He's keeping it trapped because he can't use it to battle. So it's just me and my Pokémon against him and his Pokémon. And I can win."

Huh. Red had a point. Naruto didn't really peg Red as the sensible kind, which was why they seemed to get along so well from only meeting a few times, but even a dead clock ended up being right twice a day, so perhaps he was just due for some good reasoning?

And then there was Green. She didn't even seem to have her wits about her to try and run away from what she seemed to be afraid of. If he and Red fought Lt. Surge he didn't put it past him to try and use her against them.

"Trust me. I'll beat him." Red said with a guarded but confident expression on his face, "This place isn't big enough for all of us to fight and stay safe. And even if we all fought him together, what would we all have left for the other Team Rocket members?"

Naruto was the only one out of the three of them that had fought against Sabrina directly before. That gave him a bit of an edge and a perspective on her skills that the other two simply didn't have.

Aside from that, Red couldn't have possibly been any sort of slouch, even if Naruto had never battled him to find out.

Red had managed to beat Janine after he and she had beaten Surge the first time, and Naaruto didn't see Red as someone that rested on his laurels so he was probably far stronger than back then as well. If he thought he could handle it, he could handle it.

Begrudgingly, Naruto picked up Green again and turned to the exit end of the Magnet Train tunnel, "You'd better catch up." He said grumpily before taking off back down the path, his echoing footsteps smacking off of the ground and slowly getting quieter in the distance.

With a deep breath, Red turned away from the exit of the tunnel back in Lt. Surge's direction, "That was pretty noble of you to stay behind and let them leave." Surge pointed out with a smirk, "But it's not like any of you are going to make it to see sunset anyway, so it was really just a waste."

The guy certainly knew how to talk tough, but there wasn't really much more that could unnerve someone than the current circumstances Red faced, and he was facing them down doggedly, 'What can I do here?' He thought to himself as he looked at his five Poke Balls. His Aerodactyl couldn't fly in that tunnel, his Poliwrath would get pulverized in seconds, and his Snorlax would have next to no room to move, 'That leaves Saur and Pika.'

That'd have to work. That would only give him half of an advantage at best. Electricity would find trouble harming Saur, and that went double for Pika.

"Go!" Red threw a pair of Poke Balls and released his two choices of battle partners; A Pikachu, and a blue-skinned quadruped creature with small fangs and a large pink flower bud on its back with leaves extending from it, "Pika, use Flash!"

Lt. Surge had to quickly cover his eyes when Red's Pikachu generated enough electricity to blind him and wound up getting hit right in the chest by a Tackle from Saur, knocking him back into the large transformer that contained Zapdos to power it. The man let out an annoyed growl and ordered his Magneton to act in retaliation, "Discharge!"

Magneton had managed to hove out of Red's field of vision when he had initiated his previous maneuver, and made its presence known in the boy's blind spot, 'Wha-! How'd it manage to get that close?' It had managed to get that close to Red and his Pokémon without any of them noticing?

And he wound up paying for it rather quickly when Lt. Surge's Magneton recklessly discharged random electricity in every direction, and three of its shots managed to shock Red and his Pokémon.

The cruel cackles of Lt. Surge were almost enough to drown out Red's own cries of pain at being zapped by electricity, "This is just the beginning kid, we've got a long way to go!"

XxX

(With Naruto and Green – Saffron City Streets)

"P-Put me down." While jumping over the low rooftops of Saffron City's residential north side of town, Naruto looked over his shoulder where he was holding Green piggyback to note that she was finally responding to what was going on around her, "I'm fine now. Honest."

He'd been hustling away from the Magnet Train station swiftly, trying to make it the rest of the way to the Saffron City Gym with the brunette in tow, but he still had to stop anyway as they were extremely close. From where they were, they could see the Gym property and the building itself; a strange cascading dome of a structure sitting in the middle of an open field with a paved path leading to it from the front.

Well it was officially go-time. Red put himself on the line to give him an open shot at taking Sabrina on with his full power, and the least Naruto could do was make good on the opportunity given to him.

But Green was still with him too.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Naruto asked as he watched Green's Ditto transform back to its normal purple blob form, leaving her in the original attire of her black dress as she recalled the Pokémon, "You freaked out seriously hard back in that train tunnel."

Like her or not, desperation made strange bedfellows. For now he needed to have Green's back… and hopefully it would be vice-versa. He didn't know what stake she had in messing with Team Rocket, but as long as whatever she wanted stuck in their craw it was a-ok with him.

Thinking about the ultra-powerful bird Pokémon that they had run across back at the train station made her shiver, but at least it had been restrained. If it had actually been up and about she might have truly fainted at the sight of it, "Don't worry. It's over now. It's gone."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at that. What was gone? The Zapdos? Was it really that bad for her to see it? Yeah, it was badass, but it still didn't make much sense to him.

Either way, Green started looking at their surroundings and pointing some things out, "We might have some trouble with this one. I don't think your Arcanine's trick of digging us in will work here. There's no way we'd get in without half of the building hearing us. And I can't use Meta-chan's Transform again like we did through town. Those psychics… they're hard to fool."

Psychics… psychic. That was a Gym for psychic Pokémon.

Wait.

Holding up one of his Poke Balls, Naruto started thinking, 'The last time I used Shuji-chan she was effective, but it was a double-edged sword.' Sabrina's psychic Pokémon could hurt her just as badly as she could hurt them, 'But maybe she can pull a little something for us that doesn't have to do with fighting.'

The Gym building didn't have any windows, and there wasn't anyone outside keeping any sort of guard.

After helping Green down from the rooftop, both of them ran across the open field to a wall on the side of the Gym where they both stopped. No one was coming out for them, and as far as they knew no one had seen them.

"Shuji-chan." Naruto said, calling out his Misdreavus from her Poke Ball to float out in front of him and Green, "I need your help getting into this building, but first can you go in and see if there's anything dangerous waiting once we get inside?" There wasn't a playful look on his little banshee's face as she was well aware of the situation. She just nodded faithfully and ghosted her way inside.

Shujinken was the smartest Pokémon out of his entire team. She knew to flee if she got into trouble, and she knew how far was too far to scout. They just needed enough of the place mapped out that they wouldn't run into trouble the moment they went in.

But for now they had a bit of time. Naruto quickly rifled through the supplies he had on hand as something of a double-check and turned Green's way, "Why'd you come here by the way? What does Team Rocket have that you want?" There had to be some kind of angle that she was working. Everyone there had some sort of feasible reason for being there.

Janine wanted to confront her father once and for all. Red and Blue had problems with Team Rocket in the past and the organization happened to be traipsing on the sanctity of their hometown, and they had even kidnapped Professor Oak to boot. Naruto meanwhile had fallen into all of this by virtue of his interactions with the people in Kanto and felt the need to stick it out to the end.

"Is it so hard to believe that I just want to beat the bad guys and save the country?"

"Yes. Yes it is."

"Oh come on. They're bad, we're good, and that's that. Go good guys?"

"No. They're bad. Red's good. Blue's probably good. I'm just plain awesome and transcend good and evil altogether. Janine's alright most of the time. But you? You're really more grey than anything else."

"I'm Green actually."

"I know your goddamn name woman! Don't be facetious."

"I don't even think you know what facetious means. I don't even think you can spell it."

Thankfully, Shujinken floated back out through the wall to spare the petty argument from going any farther. Unlike his fights with Janine, bantering with Green felt more like a chore than any kind of fun or the stress buster that it was with the former.

Seeing the ghost got them to break up the repartee quickly as it was time to get to work.

Without wasting another moment, Naruto grabbed onto Shujinken and held her tightly before prompting Green to get a hold of him, allowing both of them to phase straight through the wall with the little ghost once she temporarily went intangible. Infiltration of Saffron City Pokémon Gym, complete.

The halls of the Gym were rather dark with pillars, and instead of being lit with fluorescent lights or some other kind of conventional lighting the visibility was provided by torches lining the walls. Did the place have to be creepy just because they were psychics?

"_Hello again sweetie. Good to see you made it off of Cinnabar Island in one piece, even if you did screw up our plans with the legendary bird trio. No matter. We still have Zapdos and Moltres."_

Naruto stopped in the vast main hallway, expecting some kind of epic sneak attack, but nothing came. It was just more mind games, but he was ready and willing to fight, "I knew I wasn't going to be able to sneak up on you. But I thought we'd get further inside before you figured out we were here."

"_Further inside?" _Sabrina seemed amused at the prospect of Naruto getting the drop on her, _"Ha, I knew you were here from the moment you passed underneath Mr. Mime's citywide barrier. I kept it up for a reason you know. It was never really to keep anyone out, it's to keep you everything in, especially now that you managed to get in. You little pests aren't getting away, and you're not surviving the day."_

"Whatever." Green stated with a roll of her eyes, "You know, we've already heard that once today."

"Just today?" Naruto said as well, "I hear it every time I run into one of them." Granted, every single time he did almost get killed, but he still had a need to get the last word in, especially on one that had managed to kick his butt so thoroughly the first time they ran across one another.

"Oh, I plan on making good on it today."

The sudden voice of Sabrina directly behind them got Green, Naruto, and Shujinken to turn around abruptly. However she was gone by the time they managed to spin around, "What?"

"My, you're both jumpy aren't you?"

Taking no chances, Naruto immediately drew a kunai in the direction of Sabrina's actual voice, finding that it was actually her at the end of the hallway with her Kadabra and Wobbuffet standing right there with her, 'Damn it, that thing again?' The blue blob of a Pokémon had devastated him the last time, but this time he knew better, "Watch out, that Wobbuffet is dangerous. If you hit it with something whatever you do'll come back to you even worse."

Green merely smirked and called her Ditto back out from its Poke Ball, "Fighting isn't always the best way to win a battle. Watch this. Meta-chan, Transform into Wobbuffet!"

And in the blink of an eye there were two Wobbuffets facing each other, staring one another down. Sabrina paled and started growling lightly in annoyance, "You think you're so smart don't you?"

And yes she did, as Green had no problem explaining just what had transpired to a confused Naruto, "A Wobbuffet doesn't have any actual attacks. Everything it does is based on an enemy attacking it first, and they're more than tough enough to take down aggressive opponents like that." Which was what made them good for things like what Sabrina was using hers for, "But they're super-competitive between each other, and they'll get into endurance matches with each other when they meet." A grin then spread across her face, "And they can last for days…"

So she had effectively taken Sabrina's troublesome defense out of the running without a bump or a bruise taken by either of them. That was the most indirect way Naruto had seen to win a battle since he'd left Konoha. All it required was a bit of extra knowledge on Pokémon breeds.

Damn it, that girl was more dangerous than he thought she was.

Without wasting another second, Naruto pointed out at Sabrina and prompted Shujinken to take aim, "Shadow Ball!" His Pokémon used her hair tendrils to form a dark ball of energy that fired off at Sabrina down the hallway.

It flew past Wobbuffet and Green's transformed Ditto without either of them moving an inch, and continued right down in the direction of Sabrina and her Kadabra. She didn't show the least bit of concern though and the two merely stepped away from each other, allowing the ball to plow into the wall behind them and pulverize it, "That was cute. Nice try."

Before Naruto could take a step forward and close the distance on the battle, Sabrina and her Kadabra teleported away, leaving Naruto and Green alone in the vast hall again.

"_You're both going to learn a very hard lesson in respecting power. You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into."_

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Arcanine): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire), ExtremeSpeed (Normal), Fire Fang (Fire).

Hogohei (Cloyster): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal), Spike Cannon (Normal), Surf (Water).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting), Revenge (Fighting), Hi Jump Kick, Blaze Kick (Fire).

Sazakumoru (Cubone): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock), Swords Dance (Normal), Thrash (Normal), Earthquake (Ground).

Shujinken (Misdreavus): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Double Team (Normal), Shadow Ball (Ghost), Thunderbolt (Electric), Curse (Ghost).

Kamisori (Aerodactyl): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Ice Fang (Ice), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Thunder), Roar (Normal), Wing Attack (Flying), Crunch (Dark), Agility (Psychic), Fly (Flying), AncientPower (Rock), Iron Head (Steel), Hyper Beam (Normal).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug), Flash (Normal), Sucker Punch (Dark), Agility (Normal), Poison Jab (Poison).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison), Sludge Bomb (Poison), Curse (Ghost), Flamethrower (Fire), Strength (Normal).

Golbat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying), Wing Attack (Flying), Aerial Ace (Flying), Double Team (Normal), Haze (Ice), Venoshock (Poison).

Venomoth: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal), Silver Wind (Bug), Gust (Flying), Poison Fang (Poison).

Forretress: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Protect (Normal), Selfdestruct (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Take Down (Normal), Gyro Ball (Steel), Bide (Normal), Mirror Shot (Steel), Iron Defense (Steel), Flash Cannon (Steel).

Red's Current Pokémon Team

Poli (Poliwrath): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Water Gun (Water), Ice Beam (Ice), Seismic Toss (Fighting), DoubleSlap (Normal), Submission (Fighting), Seismic Toss (Fighting), Mind Reader (Normal), Focus Punch (Fighting).

Saur (Ivysaur): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Vine Whip (Grass), PoisonPowder (Poison), Leech Seed (Grass), Razor Leaf (Grass), SolarBeam (Grass), Sleep Powder (Grass), Sweet Scent (Normal), Synthesis (Grass).

Pika (Pikachu): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Thundershock (Electric), Quick Attack (Normal), Flash (Normal), Thunder Wave (Electric), Substitute (Normal), Toxic (Poison), Thunderbolt (Electric), Thunder (Electric), Volt Tackle (Electric).

Snor (Snorlax): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Body Slam (Normal), Rest (Normal), Headbutt (Normal), Strength (Normal), Mega Punch (Normal), Sleep Talk (Normal), Belly Drum (Normal), Earthquake (Ground), Toxic (Poison), Mega Kick (Normal), Harden (Normal).

Aero (Aerodactyl): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Supersonic (Normal), Dragon Claw (Dragon), Hyper Beam (Normal), Fly (Flying), Take Down (Normal), Rock Throw (Rock), Bite (Dark), Screech (Normal).

Blue's Current Pokémon Team

Scyther: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Slash (Normal), Metal Claw (Steel), Quick Attack (Normal), False Swipe (Normal), Pursuit (Dark), Agility (Psychic), Razor Wind (Normal), X-Scissor (Bug), U-turn (Bug).

Charizard: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Flamethrower (Fire), Fire Spin (Fire), Cut (Normal), Fly (Flying), Fire Punch (Fire), Rage (Normal), Dragon Claw (Dragon), Shadow Claw (Ghost), Hone Claws (Dark), Brick Break (Fighting).

Porygon: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tri Attack (Normal), Conversion (Normal), Sharpen (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Magnet Rise (Electric), Conversion 2 (Normal), Signal Beam (Bug).

Machamp: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Submission (Fighting), Karate Chop (Fighting), Low Kick (Fighting), Focus Energy (Normal), Seismic Toss (Fighting), Cross Chop (Fighting), DynamicPunch (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Earthquake (Ground).

Golduck: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Confusion (Psychic), Surf (Water), Fury Swipes (Normal), Zen Headbutt (Psychic), Amnesia (Psychic), Ice Punch (Ice), Icy Wind (Ice), Water Pulse (Water), Psych Up (Normal).

Green's Current Pokémon Team

Puriri (Jigglypuff): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Sing (Normal), Pound (Normal), DoubleSlap (Normal), Defense Curl (Normal), Disable (Normal), Attract (Normal), Double-Edge (Normal), Tri-Attack (Normal), Body Slam (Normal), Rollout (Rock).

Kame-chan (Blastoise): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bubble (Water), Water Gun (Water), Tackle (Normal), Tail Whip (Normal), Mega Punch (Normal), Withdraw (Normal), Surf (Water), Hydro Pump (Water), Flash Cannon (Steel), Rain Dance (Water), Bulldoze (Ground).

Meta-chan (Ditto): Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Transform (Normal).

Pikkun (Clefairy): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Growl (Normal), Metronome (Normal), Minimize (Normal), Substitute (Normal), Façade (Normal), Safeguard (Normal), Hidden Power (Normal).

Sabrina's Current Pokémon Team

Wobbuffet: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Counter (Fighting), Mirror Coat (Psychic), Safeguard (Normal), Destiny Bond (Ghost).

Hypno: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Hypnosis (Psychic), Headbutt (Normal), Secret Power (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Synchronoise (Psychic), Zen Headbutt (Psychic), Future Sight (Psychic), Dream Eater (Psychic) Trick Room (Psychic), Torment (Dark).

Kadabra: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Teleport (Psychic), Psybeam (Psychic), Façade (Normal), Shock Wave (Electric), Fire Punch (Fire), Agility (Psychic), Recover (Normal), Zap Cannon (Electric), Psychic (Psychic), Psycho Cut (Psychic), Trick (Psychic).

Lt. Surge's Current Pokémon Team

Raichu: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Thunderbolt (Electric), Mega Punch (Normal), Mega Kick (Normal), Take Down (Normal), Slam (Normal), Thunder Wave (Electric), Thunder (Electric), Wild Charge (Electric).

Magneton: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Lock-On (Normal), Zap Cannon (Electric), Supersonic (Normal), Spark (Electric), Magnet Bomb (Steel), Discharge (Electric), Sonic Boom (Normal).

Zapdos: Unknown Gender  
><span>Attacks<span>: *Rendered immobile for Lt. Surge's benefit in powering his electric types on his suit*

Voltorb(s): Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: *Specialized in use for battle suit* Selfdestruct (Normal), Swift (Normal).

Magnemite(s): Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: *Specialized in use for battle suit* Sonic Boom (Normal).

* * *

><p><strong>Alright. That's all I've got for you this time, hope you dug it. I've got nothing even marginally interesting to say other than that my chest is in excruciating pain. <strong>

**I messed up tendons in my chest when I was lifting weights, and it's right up there with some of the worst pain I've ever felt. No need for surgery though, so I've got that going for me.  
><strong>

**I can't lift my right arm any higher than my stomach without springing a tear forth, so I'll just leave you with the chapter and be done with it.**

**I need to wrap a new ice pack to my pec, write some Sealed Kunai and BLU, and sleep until my chest muscles knit themselves back together.  
><strong>

**Some life advice: If you think you can't lift that weight, you probably can't lift that weight and there's no vital reason to. Don't ever listen to your spotter when he's bigger than you.**

**Until the next time I end up polluting your mind with my trivial fictional musings, Kenchi out.**


	16. A Long Time Coming

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. If I did I'd shoot my own infomercial that would air all over the country at 4 a.m. in the morning telling people of this fact. Why wouldn't I? It's not like I wouldn't have the money to waste right? Wahahahahaha!

**Chapter 16: A Long Time Coming**

* * *

><p>(With Red – Northern End of Saffron City – Inactive Magnet Train Tunnel)<p>

Red was a strong Pokémon Trainer, really he was. He had multiple Badges to his name, and he couldn't remember the last time he had actually lost a battle to anyone or anything. He had also been electrocuted before, as something like that simply came with the territory when he owned an ornery Pikachu. That being said though…

Lt. Surge's Magneton shocked him harder than he had ever been shocked in his life. The man was a total horse's ass, but damned if he didn't know his electric types.

Maybe letting Naruto leave to go after Green when she freaked out wasn't the best of ideas after all?

Be that as it may, it didn't matter. That was then (all of ten minutes ago) and he was still getting his butt kicked all over that train tunnel. Lt. Surge was extremely sadistic to the point of tormenting his opponent when he had the upper hand, even when that opponent was a kid.

Not that such a thing really mattered anymore. Really, if they were still being underestimated because they were children, some people would just never learn.

"This is power past what being a Gym Leader by itself can grant." Lt. Surge said, chuckling as he saw Red's Pikachu and Ivysaur huddle over him as he started picking himself up off of the graveled ground, "Using an untamable legendary, it's far past something any of you worthless punks could ever be capable of.

Surge lifted the bazooka in his hand and loaded it with one of his Voltorbs before firing it right at Red and his battling pair. He had been getting back up, but he hit the deck immediately, covering his Ivysaur and Pikachu as the shot missed and the blast went off behind them.

Gritting his teeth at the close proximity of the explosion, Red still found them all pushed closely along the ground by sheer force before he got them all back up, 'There's no sunlight in here, so I can't charge a SolarBeam to blow the whole machine away and let Zapdos out. It looks like I've got to work around here.'

"Spark Magneton!"

Surge's Magneton immersed itself in its own electricity and hurled itself at Red and his Pokémon but Red was ready, "Saur, Vine Whip!" Ivysaur grabbed Magneton and whipped around in a quick circle before throwing it back at Lt. Surge, forcing him to dive out of the way as the bulky metal Pokémon smashed a hole into the wall of the tunnel with its body, "Trapping a Zapdos doesn't make you strong, especially the way you did it! It still doesn't respect you, that's why you have to use it like that!"

An irritated growl rose up from Surge's throat before he fired another Voltorb at Red who was keen on moving aside this time, keeping the Pokémon from blowing up on him, "Tch, annoying brat." Red was certainly quick on his toes. Not as aggravatingly fast as Naruto and Janine had been, so he was more his speed, but surprisingly nimble nonetheless, "Maybe you do know what you're doing in a battle."

Red's natural confidence in his ability to battle had to take a backseat. Getting praised by an enemy that had a Pokémon captured and cooped up to be used as a prisoner to power his ridiculous suit was not his idea of a positive.

'Cut the cords leading to the suit.' That much was obvious, thus Lt. Surge was keeping Red in front of him directly at all costs. Too bad Red's Pikachu was so extremely quick, making his attempt at spacing him irrelevant, "Pika, use another Flash!"

The little electric mouse lit up the tunnel to a blinding degree, and once again Lt. Surge called his Magneton into action to assist him, "Discharge again!" Blind-firing with an attack that had such a great and varied number of possibility to hit the target was his best move, but not in this instance. He had to throw out his second Pokémon that hadn't been blinded, "Raichu, Slam the runt Pikachu!"

A larger mouse Pokémon with orange-brown fur, black differently shaped ears, and a longer tail with a lightning bolt at the end of it emerged from Surge's last resort Poke Ball and rushed at Red's Pika before grabbing him and slamming him to the ground where he sat on him, holding him down.

"Pika!" Red shouted at seeing one of his top battlers pinned down.

Surge couldn't see, but he still let out a laugh at hearing the distress in Red's voice. His gambit with his Raichu had clearly worked. Now was the time to finish this, "Magneton, Lock-On to the brat!"

The eyes on the Magneton turned red and homed in on Red, seemingly marking his chest with an infrared tracer that he could not remove or shake off, "Wha-?"

'Blind or not, I won't miss now.' Surge thought to himself. This called for a sure-kill shot, and he had just the move that no human being could stand up to, "Zap Cannon!"

Every magnet on the three conjoined bodies of Surge's Magneton started building sheer electricity with a loud static crackling noise before a large yellow-green ball of mixed energy formed. Even having been conventionally blinded, Lock-On gave Magneton the ability to find Red, as it turned toward him and easily took aim.

Red didn't even have time to open his mouth in horror before the Zap Cannon was shot off his way with a bang. But his vision of his own death was obscured by a bulky, leafy body jumping in front and taking the shot in his stead.

The resulting explosion from the move blew Red away from what had intercepted the blast for him, but he quickly sat up with a feeling of desperation in his gut. There was only one other thing in that tunnel that would have possibly done such a thing for him, "Saur!" Red's Ivysaur wound up being victimized by the blast, "No!"

"HA!" Surge barked out victoriously as his spotty vision started evening out. He could see the smoking form of the Ivysaur trying to stand back up despite its heavy injuries. Looking over at Red's Pikashu still being squished by his Raichu he dealt the next order, "Thunder!"

Raichu smirked cruelly before channeling all of the electricity it could to shock the Pikachu underneath. It didn't hurt Pikachu as badly as it could have with any other attacks, but Surge had a cruel streak and that was what he wanted done.

Saur slowly got back up much to Red's delight, but that delight quickly vanished when he could see just how difficult it was for him to move, "You're paralyzed aren't you?" He didn't have anything on him to deal with that, "Don't worry buddy, we'll get out of this somehow. He's not that tough."

"Supersonic!"

Red's attempts to rouse and reassure Saur that everything would be okay came to an end when his ears were filled with a skull-splitting noise that brought him to his knees as he tried to cover them somehow, "AAAAHHH!"

As his Magneton's Supersonic died down, Surge walked over to Red and grabbed him by the wrist to lift him up off of the ground before punching him in the stomach, "Not that tough? Coming from a pipsqueak like you that's rich!" He finished with another punch before dropping Red back onto the ground, "You thought you could win on your own?"

"I'm not on my own." Red struggled to say as he tried to claw his way back up only for Surge to sit a knee on his back to push him back down, "I've got Pika, and Saur. I've got all of my team with me. And yes we can."

"Really now?" Surge asked, grabbing Red by his collar and picking him up as he aimed his bazooka at Saur, "Well let's thin those numbers of yours a bit shall we-?"

Only he wasn't really looking at an Ivysaur anymore. It was… bigger? Yeah, definitely bigger. Way bigger. And it didn't have a flowered bud on its back anymore. It had a full grown, bulky flower with thick petals supported by what almost appeared to be like a trunk.

"Venusaur…" Red managed a grin through Lt. Surge's grip on him before finding himself thrown directly at Saur by the now livid Gym Leader, "Whoa!"

Surge threw Red in his panic at facing a newly evolved grass-type. Electricity didn't hurt them as badly as it hurt other types of Pokémon, and now it would only be worse. He knew Zap Cannon by itself, no matter how strong it was, would be hard-pressed to defeat a well-trained grass-type, which was why he decided to aim at Red.

"Goddamn it!" Surge yelled at the boy he had just thrown only to see the newly evolved Venusaur catch him out of the air with Vine Whip, "GODDAMN IT!"

As he was lowered down onto Saur's flowered back, Red could hardly believe it, letting out a bit of a stunned laugh, "Ha, I've got to say, your timing really couldn't have been better." Now they were back in the fight, "Let's get Pika back. Leech Seed."

Surge's confused Raichu found itself paying for its obedience in keeping Pika pinned and out of commission when Saur launched a seed that stuck itself to its fur and unleashed vines and leaves that wrapped it up and began draining its energy with a red glow.

Pika finally found some wiggle room and made a move without getting a command from Red. While Raichu was vulnerable, Pika created a see-through lifeless substitute that took his place underneath Raichu, and with a rather wicked smirk on his face decided to add injury to insult, stabbing it with a purple-tipped tail to poison it with Toxic.

Surge saw Pika dart across the tunnel to join back up with Red and Saur, and he lost his cool, "Blow that Pikachu away! Zap Cannon!" Magneton formed another powerful ball of pure pressurized electricity and fired it off, but without Lock-On its aim suffered horrendously.

Not only did the shot miss, it veered so far off course it actually drifted up and impacted off of the ceiling of the tunnel, blowing a massive hole clear into it. Chunks of concrete from the tunnel fell down all around them. Surge narrowly avoided falling debris with a dive and the Sonic Boom shield from the Magnemites on his suit, while Pika skillfully darted around the deadly rock.

Okay, this stopped being funny a long time ago by Lt. Surge's count. Officially out of patience, he started using his Voltorbs with his bazooka to blast concrete out of his way until he caught sight of Red again, "The joke is over Tiny." But Red wasn't moving, just standing in place beside Saur while Pika stood in front of him, red cheeks sparking with electricity defensively, "What are you doing?"

They were all standing in the sunlight gifted to the tunnel via the hole that Surge's Magneton had managed to create with its missed Zap Cannon, and Saur's flower was gathering visible energy at the center of the massive flower on its back.

Surge panicked for a second before crossing his arms over his chest as he stood strong, "SolarBeam eh? You'll never kill me with that. Remember the suit?" Admittedly, it would still hurt like hell, but the Magnemite Sonic Boom shield would take the vast majority of the impact away from the shot.

"Yeah, I remember." Red informed him, remembering how he had blocked Naruto's initial attack cold when the battle started, "Saur, SolarBeam fire!"

Saur let out a powerful roar before releasing a booming shot of solar energy from the flower on his back. Lt. Surge covered up and the standing command for the Magnemites on his suit to protect him put up the makeshift Sonic Boom shield, only for the SolarBeam to miss him entirely.

Lt. Surge hadn't been his target. The target had been the special glass container meant to keep Zapdos captive. And the SolarBeam had blown the top clear off of it. Lt. Surge promptly started praying to every deity he had ever heard of in his entire life.

Zapdos flapped its wings to lift itself out of the remains of its former prison, each movement of its wings sounding of thunder.

Strange… Surge hadn't been afraid of Zapdos the first time because he'd had an elaborate capture plan, a legion of flunkies to throw at Zapdos in abject sacrifice, and the machines needed to bring the powerful Pokémon down.

Now he didn't have any of that. He didn't even have the power to make his suit the least bit effective any longer as it fell apart. The Magnemites floated off of his shoulders and the Voltorbs fell off of his bandoliers.

He wasn't naked, but he sure as hell felt like he was, "No…" Surge said, fists clenched and teeth gritted as Zapdos gave him a death stare, "No, I'm supposed to be the best electric Pokémon Trainer in Kanto… so why is it that I can't have the strongest electric Pokémon? Why can't Team Rocket control that kind of power? Why can't I have that power?"

"No one said you couldn't." Red said, believing that it would be a good time to take what he'd managed to pull off and leave. Zapdos was pissed, and he didn't want to risk an irritable Pokémon of legend turning on him after he'd gotten his fill of getting revenge on Surge, "But if all you've got up your sleeves are tricks and shortcuts what are you gonna do when those fail?" He yelled back into the tunnel as he, Saur, and Pika ran away.

Best choice he'd ever made.

Resigning himself to his fate, Lt. Surge turned around and punched into his palm as Zapdos flew in front of him, crackling with power, "Come on then." He said, gesturing Zapdos forward, "Come on you big yellow wuss, give me all the juice you've got!" He shouted as he charged at it.

If he was going to go out he was going to go out swinging.

Not the best of ideas really. Manly, yes. But not very smart.

Honestly, Red wanted to try and catch it himself. It was a _legendary Pokémon_! How many chances to face down one of those would he ever get? But he felt like it was just a little out of his league.

"GGGRRRAAAAGHHHAA!"

From the big yellow flashes that illuminated the scene from even as far as the end of the tunnel back at the train station and the sound of electricity running through Surge's system he felt he'd made the right choice.

XxX

(With Janine and Blue – Silph Co. Headquarters Building – 11th Floor)

Still in a Team Rocket disguise, Janine managed to pickpocket everything that she and Blue, also in Team Rocket garb, needed to move through the building appropriately. The only place they couldn't get to was the basement level where the prisoners from Pallet Town were being kept.

Blue wanted to break out the Poke Balls and start tearing the place apart until someone presented them with his grandfather Professor Oak to get them to stop, but that was a terrible idea. Silph Co. employees were still in the building and still working as if nothing was wrong.

They were being held hostage under further investigation. While the president of the company was elsewhere under the guise of a business trip, in reality he was being forced to stay away via threats from Team Rocket and whoever led them. All of Silph's resources were in the hands of the bad guys, as were the employees of the headquarters building.

Either way, even with that, Blue and Janine had a good thing going so far from her perspective. Free reign of the building to search, the credentials to get to almost anywhere they needed to, and the ability to guide the enemy into misdirection and traps if they needed to.

Blue's impatience at the pace of the plan was getting annoying, and the fact that he couldn't walk around without glaring a hole through everyone else with an 'R' on their clothes almost led to some near-misses in getting discovered.

Luckily they'd managed to steal the right ID to gain access to the top floor where almost no one was. While Oak and the Pallet Town prisoners might have been on the basement floors, they were up there so that Blue could cool his head. While it had been the most secure location, it also had the least amount of guards.

Finding a room that actually locked from the inside, both young Pokémon Trainers managed to get inside before Janine shut the door behind them and relocked it, leaving them both in the rather dark room, "You need to chill out." She stated bluntly, leaning her back against the door while Blue paced around farther inside, "What good are you going to do anyone starting a fight before we find them or find a way out?"

Even if they managed to get the prisoners out of the building, there was still a Barrier around the town for the time being. At least until the party of Naruto, Red, and Green could find Sabrina's Mr. Mime and manage to neutralize it.

"It's better than wandering around like idiots trying to fit in with them!" Blue replied, taking off his Team Rocket beret and hurling it to the ground, "All you've done since we've gotten inside is fraternize and pickpocket people. What good does that do?"

"It got us up here didn't it?"

"Yeah, when we need to be down lower. Good work."

She so didn't need that sarcasm. Verbally sparring with Blue was not as fun as arguing with Naruto, not by any stretch. She wanted to punch him in the face, but that would have been counter-productive. The last thing they needed to do deep within the belly of the enemy was to fight each other.

"I don't need to hear this from you." Janine replied while feeling around on the walls nearby to find a light switch of some sort, "I could have just let you do your stupid little plan. What was it again?" She feigned temporary ignorance only to drive her point home, "Oh yeah; standing outside and barking at the boss to come out there and challenge to you an old-timey duel. Instead, I got you in when I could have just used you as a diversion to get myself in, something I probably would have done in the old days."

Come to think of it, she would have done a lot of things in the 'old days' that she probably would at least think twice about now.

Blue scowled at Janine before turning around and finding more darkness in the room. The room was bigger than they thought it would be when they decided to duck into it, that much he could tell due to the echo when they spoke.

After finding the switch and flipping it, Janine's eyes widened at what they found. Even Blue had a look of surprise on his face. Now they could see why that room's security hadn't been ensured to electronic measures that could be overcome the way that they had done with everything else.

"Did we just find the prototype room?" Janine asked aloud as she looked at the rather narrow hallway they were in, walls laded with protective glass keeping all sorts of products and technology inside that looked like they were one step short of being released to the public, "Oh my God… we found the prototype room."

"It figures." Blue said, also seeming to marvel at what they'd come across, "That this would be the place that most of the Rockets couldn't get to with their security cards." After all, who'd want the jabronis to have access to all of the potential toys that Silph Co. scientists had come up with? The tippy top-dog around there would have to be the only one with the key needed to get in, "What are you doing?"

At the moment, Janine was questioning whether or not she wanted to try and break through the glass to get to what was behind it, 'No… don't do it girl. It's not worth it.' She tried to reason with herself, having to physically restrain her own right hand from punching through the glass, 'It'll set off every alarm in this place and we'll be dead. But oh… everything back there has _got_ to be worth so much money. This is Silph for crying out loud!'

She let out a desperate whimper as she wrestled with her own tendencies to steal and sell things and Blue decided that he'd be better off looking through the rest of the things there while she hashed things out with herself.

Continuing to look around, he found a Poke Ball that was under heavier protection than anything else in the prototype room. A strange Poke Ball, white on the bottom but purple on the top with pink circles popping out of the top purple portion. An 'M' was emblazoned on the front.

'Huh…' Blue thought to himself. He knew that there were Poke Balls for different situations being developed in other regions of the continent by artisans, Professor Oak often talked about how interesting the topic was, but he didn't know what this one was, why Silph Co. was coming up with it, or why it was being locked away so securely, but it looked rather potent.

Perhaps that was just the flash of Silph's resources coming through, because that was one flashy Poke Ball. For all of those bells and whistles it had better have been badass. _"Master Ball: Will catch any Pokémon without fail."_ He had to let out a roll of the eyes at that. That was quite the bold claim to make.

"We should go and get back to work now." Blue said, actually dragging Janine out of the room before she could do something that they'd all regret, "You can come back and rip the place off later when people aren't going to die."

"There won't be a later." Janine replied stubbornly, but she let herself be pulled away out of the room and back into the primary hallway regardless. It was true. They still had a task to accomplish, "So where to next?"

"The President's office." Blue stated firmly. If he'd learned anything it was that Team Rocket collectively had a serious ego. If there wasn't something in there that could get him to his grandfather and the other Pallet Town captives he'd eat the beret he'd thrown on the floor before, "I know we'll find something there."

He had let go of her arm, but she still had to follow what seemed to be a man on a mission. He marched straight for the biggest pair of doors on the entire floor and threw them open to enter the very posh and spacious working quarters of the Silph Co. President.

Both had a Poke Ball in hand just in case, but Janine almost dropped hers upon making it inside and seeing the man that sat behind the desk at the back of the room, "Otou-sama…"

With his feet up on the table, Koga sat in his ninja armor, arms crossed and long scarf around his neck. There was no smirk on his face, or any signs of distress, bravado, or humor, "Hello child. I see you didn't take your good fortune of surviving Moltres on Cinnabar Island and leaving it at that."

How could he just talk about it so dismissively? Didn't he care about what he'd done?

That was a question that she didn't require the answer to. Of course he didn't. If such destruction mattered to him he wouldn't have done it to begin with, "You're a coward…" Janine said to him under her breath, "You're a coward! Mister Jiraiya broke your control over Articuno and you blew up the volcano so that you didn't have to risk losing Moltres as well! Just because you didn't want to get whipped by a Konoha ninja again!"

The glare leveled on her at that point actually got her to take a step back, "I won't hear this from you. You know the stories. I've told you of how their brood turned our clan into nonfactors during their time here fifteen years ago. And yet at the first opportunity given to you, you choose to gallivant around with one of them. Not just any Konoha ninja either; the son of the damned Namikaze and the man that trained him!"

"You got beaten up fifteen years ago and I'm supposed to be angry about it?" Janine questioned in regards to her ongoing relationship with the foreigners, "Get over yourself! You sold out everything that gave you integrity just because you're a sore loser? You almost ruined my life!"

"Do not disrespect me in such a manner girl." Koga said, dropping his feet onto the floor and standing up behind the desk, "If you want to live long enough to watch me crush your little friend I would hold my tongue if I were you."

Blue had heard enough of it all. This wasn't the time to work out any family drama. He had his own to deal with; namely freeing his grandfather and the other denizens of his hometown, "I don't care anymore! Give me back the Pallet Town citizens or I'll beat the key card to the basement out of you!" He yelled as he released his Pokémon from its ball, "Machamp, Karate Chop!"

"Weezing, Smokescreen!"

From underneath the desk, thick black clouds of smoke jetted out, obscuring the vision of Blue, Janine, and Blue's Machamp that stormed forward and smashed its hand through the desk in a chop that missed anything that was living.

'Damn it!' Blue thought to himself angrily at letting his temper dictate his actions, 'I should have expected that someone like him would have already had a Pokémon ready to react!' And now the entire room was covered in smoke that was billowing out into the hall, 'Did he flee already?'

"Iron Tail."

"Forretress, Iron Defense!"

A horrid clang sounded out right in front of Blue as through the slowly clearing smoke he could see Koga right in front of him with an Ekans wrapped around his right arm, leading with its tail that had been poised to stab through him had it not been for Janine's timely intervention.

There was disappointment on Koga's face as he looked over at his daughter and dodged a kick sent his way from her, "You were aware enough of my positioning in this smoke to call out a Pokémon to prevent me from stabbing the boy, but instead of taking advantage and striking me down you chose to protect his life. You've wasted the only opportunity you'll be given to kill me."

"Submission!"

Koga disappeared back into what was left of the smoke before Blue's Machamp could pinpoint his location and grab him to pulverize him with its incredible strength.

"Rapid Spin!" A quick whirling dervish of a maneuver from Forretress later, and the room was clear of smoke, and clear of Koga and Weezing as well, much to Janine's chagrin.

He had been correct earlier. She had wasted a clear shot to kill him then and there. If she'd called out Ariados instead of Forretress, her spider Pokémon would have been quick enough to end his life, but Blue would have been impaled by Ekans' Iron Tail before she would have gotten him.

She let out a desperate sigh before giving Forretress a pat as thanks for a job well done. He had performed its defensive role admirably as he had been really been fast to respond when the need arose, "You were as fast as I needed you to be." Janine said, "Let's get you back in the ball so we can get moving."

"Thanks." Blue mumbled as if he didn't want to say it aloud while watching Janine recall her Forretress. As emasculating as it was to get saved, it was still required, and he wouldn't be some ungrateful wretch.

He would have never thanked Red, or Naruto, and he normally wouldn't have thanked Janine either, but he could see quite clearly that she had been put in a bad mood. She'd been given the platform to counter her father and defeat him and had to waste it because of him.

He'd gotten in her way.

"It's alright." Janine said, carefully peeking out into the hallway to make sure no unwanted assailants were coming or that no traps had been set by Koga upon his departure, "We've got to find him fast though. Otou-sama wouldn't have retreated from us in a million years. So he's either laying an ambush somewhere, or he's picking a different battleground."

Two against one in an office wasn't really the best place for a fight, even if he was the superior trainer and overall combatant. He missed on his bid to kill Blue and get rid of him quickly, and decided not to risk a tactical disadvantage by staying. Koga was annoyingly astute at battling.

There was no one outside, nor any traps, thus Janine and Blue moved carefully through the halls after he had recalled his Machamp.

Blue wiped at beads of sweat forming on his forehead, and even Janine was admittedly feeling uncomfortably warm inside of the building. Didn't Silph Co. have climate control in their main headquarters?

Upon reaching the elevators they hit the call button to open the doors only for nothing to happen. Time kept passing, but the elevators weren't even moving, "Did Koga sabotage the elevators?" Blue asked with a grit to his teeth.

"Sounds like him." Janine commented with a frown on her face, "He really must be trying to keep you as far away from the basement as possible." They'd come up there looking for the needed credentials to get down to the basement floors, but they wound up stuck up there, "Well you have a Charizard, so we can just fly ourselves on out of here from a window."

And the sooner they got outside into the cool air the better. It was sweltering in there.

They reached a conference room and noted that the window comprising the wall there had already been broken, with an escape rope leading up to the roof. Looking over at Blue, both he and Janine wordlessly nodded and they ran for the opening before jumping out with Blue releasing his Charizard to catch both of them and fly up to the roof.

There they saw Koga just sitting on the A.C. unit, a destroyed A.C. unit. The jerk. Why'd he do something like that? It was hella-hot in there now because of it.

"It took you long enough to figure out where I was." Koga said, "Perhaps I didn't teach you how to track well enough."

"It doesn't matter now does it?" Janine said before dropping down off of Blue's Charizard to land on the roof as well, "You're at a disadvantage up here Otou-sama. Even if you could defeat one of us, his Charizard can fry you from the sky. Just stop this and come home already, please. I won't ask again."

Ignoring her request for the umpteenth time, Koga slowly got up off of his temporary seat with a stern look on his face, "Have you wondered why this city's climate has shifted so dramatically? It was mild in Saffron City only a matter of minutes ago, and now what do you think of the weather?"

What did he mean? It was hot. Really fucking hot. Middle of summer, right at the equator, sticky and hot.

And… that wasn't right. It was usually nice weather in Kanto. All over. The entire country had the mildest climate on the entire continent. It was something of a seasonal paradise with the exception of a few places.

East of Cerulean near Rock Tunnel suffered from sporadic and destructive lightning storms. The Seafoam Islands were an arctic anomaly in a tropical area. And Victory Road at times could grow in temperature as if it were a stone oven.

All of those things had been because the climate was affected by outside elements. Kanto's three legendary birds.

"No." Janine said before looking up into the air. The clouds started dissipating as if the sun itself was peeking through them. But she knew better, because she knew what Team Rocket had at their disposal, "Blue, move your Charizard!"

He wanted to ask why, but a sky-splitting caw directed his attention upward. Behind the clouds a silhouette of a grand and mighty bird came into his sight and got bigger in the shadow of the cloud, "What is that?"

"Moltres! Now move it or lose it!"

The legendary Pokémon Moltres? Blue was no ignorant trainer. His grandfather was the leading mind on Pokémon in Kanto, and with that kind of relation you tended to pick up some things. Things like knowing what a Moltres was, and what it was capable of.

Blue's gaze snapped down from the clouds to Janine as if she were insane, "Did you inhale too much smoke in that office?"

From the clouds, Moltres divebombed with its body lightly cloaked in a sheen of flames. Blue's Charizard had never let its guard down and with a mighty flap of its wings both he and Blue were moved out of the way, narrowly avoiding a fiery collision.

It really was a Moltres. So Janine wasn't nuts. He was really hoping that she was.

"…Is that thing real?" He asked incredulously as Moltres circled the Silph Co. building beneath him and his Charizard.

Koga decided to answer that question with another question, "Well let me put it this way. If you simply hovered there in the air and it opened its mouth and blasted you head-on with fire, would you be dead?"

Blue didn't react to that at first, instead choosing to look down at Janine on the rooftop with a deadpan look on his face, "I hate your dad." He possessed his body with a Gastly and almost killed him in Pokémon Tower, and now he had to fight a legendary. He had plenty of reason to despise the man.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Good luck." Janine told him as Blue got his Charizard into battle mode, prepared to chase Moltres through the skies to deal with it, "If there's a collar around its neck an easier way to win would be to get rid of it somehow." If that was an option, Moltres would probably flee the scene similar to how Articuno did on Cinnabar Island

A nod came from Blue in understanding of the advice as he took off to engage in combat. Ill-advised combat, but combat nonetheless.

As he flew away, Janine's gaze moved back down and hardened on her father. He hadn't tried to attack and kill her while her attention had been diverted. That was how seriously he took her. If it had been Naruto the yellow-headed dummy would have complained about being underestimated, but not her. The less focus he had on fighting her properly the more chances she'd have to win.

Lifting an arm that still had his Ekans wrapped around it that was hissing at her threateningly, Koga beckoned her toward him, "Come on then girl. Allow your father to give you one last lesson to take with you to hell."

So that was it. There wasn't any more reasoning. She'd tried her best. She'd really done what she could to try and convince him to come home time and time again, to stop all of this Team Rocket nonsense. The only option left was to beat it into him.

"Golbat." Janine said softly, summoning her bat Pokémon from the ball in her possession. Instead of flying around it rested on her forearm like an obedient bird, waiting for her command that she did not hesitate to issue, "Steel Wing."

While the tops of Golbat's wings were as hard as a blunt metal pipe as a result of the technique, the webs of the underside of the wings sharpened to that of a blade, and that was the side she was going to use.

It wasn't widely known by most trainers, but for those trained in the Koga ninja style they were given the knowledge to search for these certain things in the moves of their Pokémon.

"You think you're going to beat me using the style that I taught you in the first place?" Koga asked with an amused look on his face, "You are but the learner Janine. I on the other hand am the master."

"I've had enough of you abusing the position. I can't let you keep doing what you've done to the rest of Kanto." Janine said, positioning herself in a formal battle stance and holding her free arm up in a half-ram seal, "After I beat you I'll be Fuchsia City's Gym Leader."

The amusement dropped from the poisonous ninja master's face, turning it as cold as a frigid winter night as he saw the ceremonial stance for a duel being taken by his only child, "You know what you're declaring don't you?"

"I do." She replied with a stiff nod as she saw Koga take the same posture as her, "…A member of the Fuchsia City Gym taking claim of Gym Leader title without it first being given by the previous Gym Leader initiates a deathmatch."

A touch of remorse passed over Koga's face before he quickly snuffed out that touch of emotion. This was no longer his daughter. This was an upstart from his clan, from his Gym, coming after his position. Like a male lion having to defend its title as the head of the pride he could afford her no mercy, and she would see none.

Not that he had been planning on giving her much from the beginning though.

"Acid!" From the mouth of the Ekans wrapped Koga's arm, sickly green corrosive fluid flew out at Janine who avoided it with a diving roll. She sparsely saw a small part of the roof that the acid had landed on melt slightly for a second, only to look up and find that Koga was no longer there.

'What?' She thought to herself looking around suspiciously, 'He can't be that much faster than me. Even Babyface doesn't move like that!' She'd spent every single day since meeting him working to catch up to Naruto's developed speed advantage over her and she felt like she'd gotten close enough to where it didn't matter that he was still faster anymore. In years of watching him she did not remember Koga ever moving so swiftly around her.

"You look surprised. Did you think I truly showed you my full speed while I was training you?" Janine couldn't distinguish where he was from the sound of his voice and that was a problem, "I may have taught you everything that you know, but I didn't teach you everything _I_ know."

XxX

(With Naruto and Green – Saffron City Gym)

Saffron City's Pokémon Gym was a very eerie place. Dark, vast halls. It was fitting, and nothing like the feel of the Fuchsia, Celadon, or Cerulean Gyms that Naruto would have preferred any day of the week over this one.

As he carefully walked the long corridors with his Misdreavus Shujinken at his side, Naruto had to peer over at his temporary partner for the time being. Pretty little Green was as devious as they came, and if he hadn't known that already from past run-ins with her she showed that much in managing to subdue Sabrina's ultra-dangerous Wobbuffet without them even having to really battle it.

She might have had some weird fear of birds, but when the wheels in her mind were turning she could probably trick anyone into anything.

Still though, "…I really wish Janine was here." Naruto said, holding up an oversized shuriken just in case something sprang from the shadows at them. With Sabrina's Kadabra able to teleport at any time she could come out of thin air at them, "No offense, but I work better with her." And on someone else's home turf he'd need all of the advantages he could get.

"She wouldn't be able to help much here." Green pointed out, making sure to stay closely behind Naruto as they moved along. She wasn't much for direct fighting at all, "She's a poison Pokémon Trainer isn't she?"

A grand point if he were really forced to admit it.

Janine had been overmatched type-wise despite making a serious fight of it on Cinnabar Island. In the end Sabrina's psychic attack had been too much for her to overcome despite her getting creative with how she battled, and she'd been telekinetically hurled away from the volcano. Had Naruto not had a brand-spanking new Aerodactyl to catch her out of the air with she would have wound up going splat on the ground somewhere.

The real aim of being in the Gym anyway was to locate the Mr. Mime that Sabrina was using to enclose Saffron City in a barrier. If they could take that down it would be a victory. But of course there was no way that she wouldn't be guarding the damn thing herself now that she knew they were there.

At the end of the hall they finally reached a pair of large doors that Naruto did not hesitate in throwing open. Without a second to waste he scooped up Green and jumped out of the way with Shujinken floating with him in order to escape a Psybeam shot his way instantly from the other end of the room.

"Still as quick as a whip." Sabrina said, sitting at the other end of the room in a very ornate throne of a chair, her cheek lazily planted in one hand as she observed him with a smirk with her Kadabra that had fired the Psybeam standing right next to her, "That's going to be more annoying this time on an open field."

With a snap of her fingers torches all over the room lit to reveal that it was a Pokémon Gym battleground.

Naruto set Green down and hurled his weaponry the length of the field right at her. It was stopped in the air right in front of her face however by an almost nonchalant lifting her hand as her eyes let off a blue glow, "So I see we didn't learn anything from the first time-."

Before she could continue gloating and taunting Naruto and Green, the large shuriken transformed in a puff of smoke into another Naruto that managed to throw a vicious kick that he was just out of range of landing. Sabrina had to jerk back as the tip of his sandal lightly grazed the tip of her nose.

She fell out of her chair and her concentration was broken, but Kadabra was quick on the draw to defend her and quickly snuffed out Naruto's Kage Bunshin before it touched the ground.

'Oh my God, that almost did it!' Green thought with a slightly lowered jaw and a small smile on her face.

"Son of a bitch!" Naruto yelled from the other side of the battlefield, "That should have worked! You got lucky! That should have been lights out and you know it!"

Sabrina was quick to sit up and stared at Naruto with wide eyes and a slight pant at the close call. He really did almost hit her. Hard, "How? I…"

"I knew it." Naruto said with a grim smirk, "You have to lock-on to someone to read their mind don't you? You can't just automatically get a hold of any stray thought around you. That's why you didn't know the shuriken was a clone, and that's why you had the entire base in Celadon clear out just to fight me when I escaped."

That had been bothering him for quite some time, but then Naruto had gotten together with Janine and had gone over their respective battles with the psychic Gym Leader. Sabrina's attention had been split between fighting Janine and commanding Moltres, and while at times she'd taunt her with telepathy she really didn't anticipate any of her moves in advance, instead relying on Mr. Mime's Barrier to stop attacks and retaliate at select moments only.

Not only that, but when the two had put their heads together in regards to their respective encounters with Saffron City's they had come up with something else.

When she was attacking with her own powers she didn't read minds, taunt her enemies telepathically, or use any divination abilities. When she was reading minds and doing the other aforementioned things she never attacked on her own, having her Pokémon do it for her.

She might have had a powerful and versatile psychic ability, but she couldn't do more than one thing at a time with it.

'And we can take advantage of that.' Green thought to herself, feeling markedly more positive about their chances to run off with the win than she had before, 'With Naruto's powers and that type neutrality he has with his Misdreavus we can really cook up something! He probably had seven different plans ready to roll before we even stepped through that-!'

"Well, that's pretty much all I came up with beforehand." Naruto admitted, arms crossed over his chest as Shujinken floated in circles around him, "I mean, that was a classic move I used. Maybe if I threw a second shuriken in the shadow of the fake first one or something it might have worked better…"

Or maybe he didn't. Maybe she was dealing with someone that wasn't really famous for his pre-combat battle plans.

And Green's hopes went right back out the window, "We're going to die in here aren't we?"

"That is _not_ the attitude you go into a fight like this with." Naruto said, punching into his palm as he continued to look over at Sabrina, "At least I know my hunch was right now. That's definitely more than we came into this building with."

Sabrina took none of this kindly, nor did she take it sitting down as she stood and decided that it was time to show Naruto who she was one more time, "Kadabra, Agility." Her Pokémon let off a healthy and unnatural glow that lasted for a split-second before fading, "This stopped being cute after Wobbuffet." With her telekinesis, Sabrina lifted her own heavy throne and hurled it at Green, seeing her as an easy target.

Naruto was about to move to assist her in dodging again, but his concern was unfounded. Green could take care of herself.

"Hydro Pump Kame-chan!"

A powerful, drilling jet of water flew from twin cannons sticking out of the shell on the back of a large bipedal turtle that looked like a hell of a fighter. It bore a resemblance to her Squirtle from their run-in in Cerulean City, only its head was sharper instead of rounded, and it was far larger.

Its Hydro Pump obliterated the chair, leaving Green quite well-off despite the attack waged against her, "I don't like to fight, but I know how to hold my own if I need to."

Sabrina's smirk unnerved her a bit until she looked back over at Naruto and saw a fluffy yellow/brown tail behind Naruto while his attention had been diverted at her out of worry, "Psycho Cut."

Kadabra's spoon-holding arm lashed out upward and unleashed a purple crescent blade of energy that slashed Naruto in the back. The glazed over look in his eyes lasted a split-second before he disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving the battlefield devoid of any blond children clad in orange.

"What?" Sabrina asked aloud. She actually had a lock on Naruto that time! She made sure that he had been thinking similarly to what she knew of him before making her feint on Green just to make an opening to take him out.

A small rattling noise echoed through the room before spiked chains shot down from the shadowy ceiling at Sabrina who lifted her hands to fend them off with a psychic push. More of Naruto's Chakra Chains appeared from different areas of the ceiling, actually having an angle on her and boxing her in. Before she could pay the price for being the target of the chains, Kadabra teleported next to her and teleported away with her.

"Water Gun!"

Sabrina and Kadabra Teleported away twice after first reappearing from his Teleport to avoid stiff blasts of water aimed at the two of them only for over thirteen versions of Naruto to fall from the ceiling all over the place. Not really surprised after already seeing what he could do, Sabrina handily began dispatching them before they even got close or tried reaching for a weapon. If he thought it would be that easy-.

At that point two Narutos that had held off from attacking dropped from the ceiling on one after another on both sides of her to use the confusion to get at her. One touched the ground before the other, directing her attention first and attacking with a punch, getting blocked by an invisible field that then destroyed it before the other managed to land a roundhouse kick to her body before getting extinguished in return by another psychic extension attack.

Coughing at the blow she'd taken, Sabrina watched five more fall from the ceiling to probably do the same thing before she caught them out of the air with telekinesis, "You miserable, annoying pest of a Pokémon Trainer! You'd better believe that I will flush you out and end your life!"

"You mad bro?" One of the captured Naruto clones asked before all of them were smashed together hard enough to dispel them.

"Flash Cannon!"

Once again, the opportunistic Green had her Blastoise fire off an attacking beam of light off of his shell and Sabrina prepared for another Teleport with Kadabra only for nothing to happen, "What?" In a last ditch defense she put up her hands and tried to blunt the impact of the blast with her powers.

Tears of pain sprang to Sabrina's eyes that she blinked back from her place on the ground. She got up quicker than anyone had expected her to along with Kadabra, something that hadn't been expected with how little actual damage she herself seemed to take in past meetings with her.

What had happened? She'd mentally issued the command to Kadabra to teleport while they had been dealing with Naruto and Green's repeated attacking. She knew that the command had gone through, she could feel the connection that they'd had.

Then she turned to look over at him and saw a dull grey glow outlining his body and had been in enough battles to know what it was. She'd slain enough ghost Pokémon to know the effects of Spite when she saw it. That devious little fucker… he had been getting her to use Teleport repeatedly so that he could use his ghost to stall out the move.

She swore she could hear Naruto's Misdreavus laughing to herself right then and there. How many different feints could someone stick into one single tactic? The answer was currently three.

Sabrina pulled out another Poke Ball and made a command to Kadabra to Recover in the meantime, "Hypno, Hypnosis!"

"Kame-chan, Withdraw!" Green immediately ordered as Sabrina's Hypno appeared front and center and began swinging its pendulum to emit its invisible waves for its psychic attack. Her Blastoise shoved its body inside of its tank carapace-like shell to avoid the effects from the distance they were at from Sabrina and Green hid behind him just in case.

But all over, Narutos began dropping from the ceiling like dead birds, hitting the ground and vanishing in puffs of smoke. A solid thump of a body smacking floor sounded out and the real Naruto lay out cold on the ground.

A small victorious laugh left Sabrina's mouth as she wiped some of the battle marks off of her face. She'd been meaning to have those rafters cleaned out. She probably should have thanked Naruto for giving her a reason to do so. She'd thank him like this, "Dream Eater."

Hypno lifted its hand as a red glow appeared around it and shot out at Naruto. From the rafters, Shujinken quickly flew down, placing herself between Hypno's Dream Eater and Naruto, cutting off the attack that was completely ineffective on her. From the main jewel around her neck, she fired up a beam of her own that wasn't aimed at Hypno, but Kadabra instead, hitting the spoon-holding Pokémon and seemingly knocking it loopy.

Damn that banshee! She confused Kadabra without even being issued the order to do so!

"You want to save that brat so badly? Fine." Sabrina said, calling off Hypno's Dream Eater attempt, "Zen Headbutt!" The crown of his head was layered in a blue spiritual shield before the Pokémon launched at Shujinken like a missile.

In her bid to protect the slumbering Naruto she wound up taking the hit directly, shooting her halfway across the battlefield into the shell of Green's Blastoise. There was very little give as her ghost body bounced off of the shell, but it prompted Green to look up from where she'd been taking cover, "Oh no…" She commented upon seeing Naruto down and out. He lay directly in the middle between herself and her Blastoise and Sabrina and her Hypno and confused Kadabra.

With a smirk, Sabrina held out a hand and lifted Naruto off of the ground, spreading his arms out and leaving his core wide open, "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this one way too much. No more fucking around Hypno. Kill him. Zen Headbutt, and punch straight through his body."

There was no way he could miss.

Green in a panic pulled out another Poke Ball and threw it forward to have another Pokémon enter the battle. A small pink Pokémon with stubby hands and legs, a big curled tail, two brown-tipped ears, and a curl of pink hair right in the middle of its head, "Go Pikkun! Metronome!"

Sabrina's eyes went wide upon hearing Green call out a Clefairy and issue the command for Metronome, 'Is she insane? There's almost no chance of her drumming up a random attack that'll actually stop Hypno.

Green's Clefairy wagged its fingers in a melodic fashion until the let off a white glow, and the eyes of the little Pokémon glowed blue. Hypno was stopped in the air from its Zen Headbutt and slammed onto the ground by an unseen force two times before being thrown away at Sabrina, who dropped Naruto in exchange for catching her Pokémon.

What were the chances that Metronome would pull up the move Psychic inside of the Saffron City Pokémon Gym? There was some irony in there somewhere.

But playing with a little Clefairy wasn't what was on the docket for Sabrina, "Secret Power." Hypno from his hands and knees pushed out a hand at Green's Clefairy and forced a tear into the ground that trailed over to it and knocked the diminutive Pokémon away. It wasn't getting back up.

She'd clearly only raised it to keep the surprise attack possibility of Metronome in her repertoire. But it worked when she needed it, so there couldn't be much fault given there.

In the meantime Green had made it out to Naruto with her Blastoise covering her so that she could try to shake him awake, "Come on, don't leave me alone here. You're the only jerk on the team I can actually count on!" No response. Man he slept hard. Think, "Get up! Kame-chan, Bubble!"

At the orders of his Pokémon Trainer, the Blastoise released a torrent of bubbles that hung in the air all over the battlefield like aerial mines that would painfully burst should they be touched. No Zen Headbutt for Sabrina's Hypno to try and kill Naruto with again.

Green was still trying to slap and yell Naruto awake before quitting as Shujinken floated over concernedly, "Do you have any ideas?" Green asked. In response, Shujinken got right by Naruto's ear and let out a horribly shrill shriek that actually got Naruto to pop his eyes open.

"Damn! I'm deaf now!" Naruto sat up quickly and over-exaggerated, though his ears were ringing like no one's business, "Wait, what the fuck happened?" And why did he feel like he had fallen on his head?

"Sabrina's Hypno put you to sleep with Hypnosis, now get up, get up!" Green tried to pull Naruto up herself with great effort on her part as she wasn't as strong as him by any stretch of the imagination, "I only bought us a little bit of time."

Looking up and around Naruto could see the Bubble attack that Green had made to keep them somewhat secure while she had tried to awaken him. Those things had hurt like hell when he'd fought Green the first time, but there seemed to be more volume of them with her more powerful Blastoise making them instead of a Squirtle, and they probably hurt worse now because of it. One would definitely think twice before making a play with those on the field.

But wait.

"How are we supposed to move?" Naruto asked dryly, his waking mind somehow inexplicably sharper than it usually was whenever he had just woken up. Green kept trying to yank him up futilely but she stopped when she realized that he had a point. A point that he proceeded to drive home, "You surrounded us with them. Not her."

Bubble didn't have the kind of range to reach over to where Sabrina and her Pokémon were. And aside from that, really, it seemed like a better idea at the time all things considered.

This was just too rich from Sabrina's point of view. She'd been miffed at first, but when they didn't move after Naruto had woken up she had to laugh at the entire thing. Someone up there must have liked her more than them. And now she was going to steal a Lt. Surge specialty and dim a few lights, "Kadabra, Zap Cannon!"

Kadabra's confused state had worn off, and the powerhouse of Sabrina's team charged up a large lightning power orb at the end of its spoon before launching it right at the entire group of enemies. It fizzled out the bubbles violently, and with the targets stuck in the 'protective' field of bubbles there was no dodging.

"Seriously, this seemed like a better idea at the time!" Green shouted before both she and Naruto hit the deck to take cover.

"I woke up for _this_!?" Naruto yelled in return just before the Zap Cannon blasted them all right at the center of the Bubble field.

Sabrina had to cover her eyes to avoid damaging them with dust and debris after the scary burst of electricity, but she couldn't have been more pleased with how things had turned out despite her difficulties in battling them.

And as the smoke cleared and she saw Naruto and Green both laying face down on the ground, unmoving. Green's Blastoise was belly down, completely out of it from the look of the electric burns littering its body and shell.

A content sigh came from Sabrina as she gazed upon the scene, "There's no kill quite like overki-." She was cut off from gloating when her Hypno was caught in a black burst of energy from seemingly out of nowhere, diverting her attention almost enough for a kunai thrown her way to graze her cheek once she moved her head and neck out of the way. The minor injury almost got her to ignore the close by spike of spiritual and physical energy that rose from nearby. Almost.

She had a close-up view of Naruto's Rasengan as it passed right by her body. Thank you precognitive abilities. She'd seen herself getting annihilated with that thing and didn't need to actually live the experience firsthand.

Naruto's full-on lunge with intent to attack missed, but he diverted aim of the jutsu at the ground. The burst impact of the Rasengan was used by the blond genin to forcefully push himself in Sabrina's direction where he lashed out with a flying haymaker of a punch that hit Sabrina right in the jaw.

He didn't like hitting women in the face, but being a ninja didn't really afford him the luxury of attempted chivalry. Especially when the woman in question had tried to kill him and those close to him on at least three separate occasions. All bets had been officially off for quite some time.

Even those musclebound fools from the old Saffron Gym and their leader that had specialized in fighting type Pokémon had never hit Sabrina directly. Naruto had managed to pester his way past several of her psychic defenses and survived multiple measures that she had set up to stop someone like him.

"Ugh…" Sabrina moaned softly to herself in pain. Her cheek was swollen and bruised where Naruto had hit her. Her sporadic sight of the future didn't see that one coming, "Useless-ass psychic powers." Looking over at where she thought she had left Naruto, Green, and the Blastoise, two of them vanished in puffs of smoke, leaving only the KOed Blastoise behind.

Green sat against the wall of the arena, holding her right shoulder and bleeding from the lip while breathing a bit heavily, "…Thank you Kame-chan." She said under her breath in regards to her Pokémon intentionally shielding the two of them from Kadabra's Zap Cannon.

Things could have been far worse for them all had he not utilized a defensive Withdraw to try and protect them from the worst of the blast. And once again misdirection with Naruto's Kage Bunshin and Henge had given him time to get the injured girl out of the line of fire before he came charging back in with Shujinken's assistance.

And they'd managed to take out Hypno with a surprise Shadow Ball and drop Sabrina herself.

Green slowly started to crawl off to vacate the battlefield while the attention was off of her. All of this didn't mean anything if they didn't bring down the Pokémon keeping up the invisible wall around the city, and Naruto had told her to go find it while he kept fighting Sabrina.

Green was hurt and had one useable Pokémon left on her. Her Ditto was still distracting Sabrina's Wobbuffet, her Blastoise and Clefairy were down for the count, and that left her with one Pokémon in her current possession. If he was certain he could win she'd let him handle it himself while she went to Sabrina's private quarters on the other side of the battlefield to locate her Mr. Mime.

Naruto's knee gave out on him and he dropped down to one leg, clutching at the other as blood streamed down it from underneath his shorts. Much like Green he'd been injured rather badly in the Zap Cannon blast, and while things could have been much worse, things weren't exactly copacetic at the moment, 'Crap. I need to thank Shuji-chan something serious after this is over. I'd have never gotten Rasengan-close on this thing without her aim at Hypno being as good as it was.'

Wait, where was Shujinken anyway? Whipping his head around frantically until he finally saw her caught in the air, stuck in a blue field that was around her body. Both Kadabra and Sabrina had glowing blue eyes and were holding up an arm each to trap the dangerous little ghost Pokémon who seemed to be in pain.

"Damn it!" Naruto lunged to try and intercept, but he found himself caught in the same field of attack as his little banshee, unable to move a muscle, right down to his fingertips. Sabrina had learned her lessons well. No Kawarimi for him this time, 'Double crap!'

"I should have put you away first." Sabrina said quietly as she started standing back up, one arm extended in Naruto's direction, the other at Shujinken to assist Kadabra, "Misdreavus is a very wily type of Pokémon, but they don't take abuse very well. Kadabra use Psybeam."

"Shuji-chan, Psybeam!"

Kadabra let go of his psychic control and switched to firing off a multicolored beam from his eyes, one that Shujinken mirrored and shot off to clash beams in midair. A stalemate of power between the two resulted from the meeting of the two attacks, much to Sabrina's surprise.

'Psybeam is a psychic attack, and a ghost is matching Kadabra's power with the exact same attack?' She looked over at Naruto and noted the look of hope in his eyes at Shujinken seemingly being able to fend off the finishing shot aimed her way. Sabrina hated that look. She wanted to get rid of it.

And she got a devious idea to enable her to do so. Not a moment too soon because she could feel Naruto trying to fight her mental grip over his body.

'Come on.' Naruto thought to himself, slowly willing his hand centimeter by centimeter to the pouch at his hip that contained his supplies and his Poke Balls, 'Need Ranbouen or Saza-chan… to bail Shuji-chan out…' He unsnapped the pouch somehow and started working his hand slowly up to reach inside, sweat pouring down his face with the amount of effort he was exerting, "Grr."

One moment Naruto found himself trapped and strictly an observer at the ongoing struggle between his Pokémon and Sabrina's own strongest, the next he found himself hurled right at where the two clashing Psybeams were meeting.

Oh, that was just not fair. It would definitely be more effective than just slamming his body all over the place, that was for certain.

With Naruto's body hurtling at the twin beams of pain and psychic power, he could only think of Sabrina as something entirely too vulgar to put into literature. Preparing for the trauma he was about to suffer his eyes flashed closed and his adrenaline pumped wildly. Even if they had been open he wouldn't have registered the red that his eyes flashed before they closed.

* * *

><p><span>Koga's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Fling (Dark), Pound (Normal), Sludge Wave (Poison), Acid Armor (Poison), Toxic (Poison), Mud Bomb (Ground), Double Team (Normal), Memento (Dark), Rock Tomb (Rock), Screech (Normal), Gunk Shot (Poison), Endure (Normal).

Ekans: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Wrap (Normal), Poison Sting (Poison), Acid (Poison), Acid Spray (Poison), Venoshock (Poison), Glare (Normal), Dark Pulse (Dark), Bite (Dark), Iron Tail (Steel), Payback (Dark).

Weezing: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Smog (Poison), SmokeScreen (Normal), Double Hit (Normal), Clear Smog (Poison), Will-O-Wisp (Fire), Assurance (Dark), Haze (Ice), Thief (Dark), Bide (Normal), Sludge Bomb (Poison), Memento (Dark).

Moltres: Unknown Gender  
><span>Attacks<span>: Wing Attack (Flying), Fire Spin (Fire), AncientPower (Rock), Flame Charge (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire), Air Slash (Flying), Roost (Flying), Sky Attack (Flying), Incinerate (Fire), Sandstorm (Ground), Heat Wave (Fire), Fire Blast (Fire).

* * *

><p><strong>This season is kicking my ass. I'm finally about to come up on some down time after three straight months of breaking myself physically and mentally. Trying to excel in life hurts your soul. I wish I were lazier.<strong>

**Oh well, it doesn't matter. Hopefully you'll join me the next time for the conclusion of the showdown in Saffron City.**

**Kenchi out.**


	17. Not From 'Round Here

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. Damn copyright infringement laws… you're killing my abilities to make money here!

**Chapter 17: Not From 'Round Here**

* * *

><p>(With Blue – Skies of Saffron City)<p>

This had been a bad idea. But sometimes your best idea still had to be a bad one, and this one fit that scenario ideally.

It had been an absolutely terrible idea honestly, to fly away on his Charizard and lead Moltres away from the Silph Co. building. But if he hadn't done it there was no way that Moltres wouldn't have gotten involved in the battle between Koga and Janine. Even if he'd have been there too fighting around the rooftop, leading Moltres away made it a fairer fight between the pair of ninjas than it would have been otherwise, as the scale would have been tipped in Koga's favor.

That had been Blue's logic in choosing to dart through Saffron City's towering skyscrapers on the back of his aerial Pokémon. Then he realized that this option left him all alone in battle with a legendary Pokémon.

Something that he was constantly reminded of when jets of flame shot over his head from behind his ear. With Moltres behind them and Charizard too bulky to shake it there were only so many options available. Moltres was so much more mobile than Charizard that it was barely fair.

Another large blast of flames flew from the beak of Moltres with a caw and Charizard had to lower his altitude in order to avoid it. With Blue on his back he really couldn't let any of those fire attacks land. As a fire Pokémon, Charizard could take a bit of that beating and keep fighting just fine. Blue couldn't really eat a Fire Blast and walk away from it. No human could.

Giving Charizard a pat of thanks for its fine performance thus far, Blue craned his neck around and saw the collar on the neck of the great bird pursuing him that Janine had spoken of in warning before they had parted ways.

He wasn't going to hit that thing at the rate he was going though. None of Charizard's ranged attacks were particularly precise enough to use to target such a small device, and getting close enough to enforce Charizard's strength as a bruiser wasn't going to be easy if possible at all given the circumstances.

"Flamethrower!" Blue shouted, timing his order well enough in a straightaway between buildings that would give his Pokémon the best chance to hit his mark. In the air, Charizard twisted and let out a roar before shooting a straight and strong stream of fire from his mouth that covered the skies between him and Moltres.

A calm smirk found its way to Blue's face before he saw Moltres' body just punch right through the flames, its body having turned white-hot. With that level of heat, the Flamethrower might as well have been nonexistent.

"Damn it!" Blue shouted before Moltres slammed a Wing Attack into the back of his Charizard, disrupting his flight. He knew that Moltres would be resistant to fire damage, but to just raise its own body heat to negate it altogether? It was legendary for a reason it seemed.

The sturdy fire lizard took the blow like a champ however and quickly regained his bearings in midair after Moltres darted past with its successful attack. While Charizard recovered, Moltres turned off behind a building to try and get a superior look to attack from on Charizard again.

Blue wondered why exactly Moltres was so angry at him and attacking so aggressively without even receiving concrete orders from Koga beforehand. There was a middle-aged toad sage hanging around in Fuchsia City that he could thank for Moltres' newfound aggression against humans if he knew of the man, but that was neither here nor there.

He could hear it cawing somewhere as it was obviously preparing to make another pass. This was going poorly and Blue needed to come up with an answer or he was going to crash and burn.

Easier said than done however.

'Okay it's faster than me, and probably knows more about battling in the air than anything else I've ever fought.' Blue thought to himself, 'Game on then.' Another jet of flame from the air let him know that Moltres had found another angle from behind to attack from and was incoming between the buildings, "Screw this crap."

They couldn't go much higher than the highest building in Saffron City due to the Barrier over the city. And Moltres was so fast it could lap Blue's Charizard with all of those buildings restricting his movements.

Moltres' body started turning white-hot again as it started bearing down on Charizard and Blue cursed into the wind. It was going for Overheat again, and it was going to actually hit this time.

"Aero, Screech!"

An ear-splitting cry erupted from higher up in the air and forced Moltres out of its attack, something that Blue didn't miss and didn't let slip out of his fingertips, "Charizard, Dragon Claw!" Charizard's claws on one of its arms let off a green glow as it turned and struck out at Moltres, landing a powerful blow that knocked Moltres through the windows of an office building.

Looking up at a shadow that flew overhead, Blue heard a young man let out an excited whoop and caught sight of a bulky, grey Aerodactyl. That was Red's Aerodactyl, and that was Red riding him. What was he doing there? Hadn't he been elsewhere in Saffron City with Naruto and Green?

He looked positively beaten the hell up though.

Whatever. He wasn't going to overthink it when it ended up with good things happening for him. It saved him probably the worst burn he'd have ever received in his life if he'd have even survived it to begin with, so if nothing else he had that going for him.

"Need some help?" Red asked, looking over at Blue.

Instead of answering, Blue shot his eyes back over at the hole in the building that he had created with Moltres' body, "It's not down yet." Another Fire Blast rocketed out of the building as Moltres came clamoring out, covered in its own flames and glaring hellishly at its two enemies on both sides of it, "Look out!"

Turning to Red and Aero, Moltres started flapping its wings and sending saw-like blades of air at that Aerodactyl had to take head-on, getting knocked back and almost stirring Red off of his back. In retaliation Blue whispered his next order to his Pokémon, and Charizard moved forward to try and bully Moltres again with another Cut attack from his claws.

Moltres threw itself higher into the air with one mighty flap that allowed it to evade the physical attack. From its beak more flames spewed down and hit Charizard in the chest and face as it tried to block with its arms and claws. The mostly fireproof lizard's bodily makeup kept Blue from getting severely burned on his back, but he could still feel the heat.

"Blue!" Red shouted before patting Aero on the head to get him to aim upward, "Aero, Bite!" Trying to fly up and latch its razor-sharp teeth onto their aerial enemy only ended up with Moltres diverting its fire to blast Aero instead. Luckily Aero's elemental type was resistant to fire, but a Flamethrower from a Moltres was no fun whatsoever, "God! What's with this thing?"

"We are trying to beat its ass genius!" Blue shouted before pointing up at Moltres, "If you can break the collar we can end this without having to fight a whole battle!"

"You don't call this a full battle?"

"Shut up and fight!"

In response, Red guided Aero up to the top of a building and issued his next command, "Rock Throw!" With his tail, Aero busted the edge of the nearest skyscraper and used his tail to swat the chunks at Moltres, with three of them scoring home with shots.

"Keep that up!" Blue ordered before issuing his next one to Charizard, "Rage!" Charizard's eyes turned red and he flew up at Moltres with reckless abandon. A Flamethrower attack from Moltres stopped him in his tracks, but only for just a moment as it seemed to antagonize it even more, its tail flame growing even larger. Storming forth once again, the second time was the charm and it shoulder-checked Moltres into the side of a skyscraper.

With a caw, Moltres kept its height and nailed Charizard with a Wing Attack, but once again despite hurting its opponent, Charizard's tail flame only grew again and it drove a shoulder block into Moltres again.

The hits from the powerful fire Pokémon were showing their effects, as there was a hitch in the flapping of Moltres' wings.

Seeing that Moltres was slower due to a wing injury, Red had a gleam in his eye and was intent on putting an end to that fight, "Aero, Hyper Be -!"

"No Hyper Beam!" Blue shouted out with no patience for any such action, "We're in the middle of the goddamn city! You want to bring a building down?" You didn't play around with Hyper Beam when you weren't in a controlled environment. Things that Hyper Beam hit didn't tend to do so well afterwards.

Red admitted to himself about getting a little overzealous. But he was just excited. He had just managed to teach Aero Hyper Beam before coming to Saffron City and he was eager to put it to use in battle. Even with a now clear mind, he missed his chance to wage an attack, and Moltres decided that enough was enough.

Just because Red couldn't pull the trigger with his Pokémon's strongest technique didn't mean Moltres couldn't.

With the time allotted to it, its entire body began to glow gold, picking out all of the weak spots that Charizard had shown in the battle and optimizing the best one to target before it charged directly at Blue in a blur.

It left a golden flaming streak that lasted in the air, even as it plowed right into Blue's Charizard and drove them both straight into a building and clear out the other side.

"No!" Red shouted as he watched Blue's Charizard crash on the rooftop of a lower building.

What had that attack been? He'd never seen a stronger flying-type move in his entire life! Most of them were fast attacks relying more on agility and speed than brute force, but that move looked like Charizard had been hit head-on by the would-be Magnet Train that was supposed to be under construction.

There was a silver-lining in the rather brutal method that Moltres had used to put down Blue's Charizard. The power and impact that it generated was hard enough to bust the Team Rocket control collar. Moltres simply flew away, out of it and a bit disoriented over the sudden loss of the control that had been cast over it for quite some while. The desire to fight was no longer within it as it tried to make heads or tails of its own situation.

But Red couldn't think about that, as Aero couldn't have flown over to the roof with Blue on it fast enough. The dinosaur of a Pokémon didn't even have time to safely land before Red jumped off of his back and ran over to Blue's badly damaged Charizard that had somehow managed to cradle his bruised and ragged body around Blue instead of keeping Blue on his back throughout all of that.

"Never… fighting legendaries again…" Blue mumbled, half out of it but aware enough to know that he was probably the luckiest kid in Kanto to have a Charizard tough enough to keep him alive after that. They had won. But their day wasn't over yet, "Gotta get grandpa."

"You need to go to a hospital!" Red argued in return, feeling somewhat responsible for what happened there. If he didn't have to cancel Hyper Beam he wouldn't have given Moltres the chance to land a crushing Sky Attack. Hesitating almost got one of them killed.

"Grandpa first…" Blue said, crawling free of his unconscious Charizard's grip before weakly returning him into his Poke Ball, "Not just him. We've got to get to the rest of Pallet Town's citizens too. Take me back to the Silph Co. building. They're all on the basement floors."

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Naruto – Saffron City Pokémon Gym)

Oh things couldn't have possibly worked out any better for the difficulties that Sabrina had found in her second battle with Naruto. His little Misdreavus' attempt to match Kadabra's Psybeam ended rather poorly for both Naruto and the Misdreavus.

Sabrina threw Naruto right at the point where the two beams met, meaning that he took the shots from both sides. Enough said. The intensity of the two blasts left a massive burn scar on the floor from the intensity of the power used.

So horrified by what had indirectly happened because of her, Naruto's Misdreavus wasn't attentive enough to avoid a second Psybeam launched her way and wound up being finally defeated.

Sabrina let out a laugh and walked over to the downed Naruto's form. Facedown he was motionless once again, only this time it wasn't due to a Hypnosis. His clothes looked like they'd been put through the wringer.

Poking at his back with his foot, the psychic Gym Leader just shook her head, "It's kind of a shame really. I'm pretty sure someone like you could have been a commander like the rest of the Triad. You did beat Surge after all." But not her, "And now you're dead. I'll take your Misdreavus though… and the rest of your Pokémon." She said as she reached for his Poke Balls that had spilled out onto the ground from his pouch along with most of his tools.

Wait. She was missing something. Something that was supposed to be pretty important.

That girl that was with him. The one with the tough Blastoise and the really annoying Clefairy. Where was she? She was no longer on the wall where she'd been weakly surviving with her injuries.

A growl rumbled its way up from Sabrina's throat as she gestured for Kadabra to follow her back to her room. That sneaky little bitch. If Green managed to get rid of Mr. Mime's Barrier the inevitable victory over her and the little ninja punk would be pyrrhic at best.

"Why don't the weaklings ever just lay down and stay down?" With a flip of her hair she walked to her end of the battlefield room only to stop when she heard movement behind her, "Speaking of which… you should be dead." With not a touch of good mood on her face at all she turned back around, "Just. Die."

Naruto's arms were slowly moving and dragging him over to his Poke Balls, cradling them all and reaching out with one to recall the beaten Shujinken, "You thought that'd be enough?" He said so quietly she almost didn't hear it, "I can't go out like this. People are waiting on me. Green is counting on me to finish you."

"You can't even stand! Stop trying to act tough!" Sabrina snapped at Naruto only to shake in anger as he indeed started to push himself back up, reaching his hands and knees and preparing to stand, "Get back down!" With a bright blue glow to her eyes she initiated a strong psychic push that knocked Naruto back down to the ground and away from his Poke Balls, "Don't you get it? You lose!"

With a slight adjustment to her ability she levitated his Poke Balls and brought them over to her, safely out of his reach so that he couldn't use them against her.

"You had a good run." She continued, taunting him by floating his Poke Balls around her body, "Seriously. You and your friends are going to be a warning story for every Team Rocket member, of just what can happen if you don't crack down hard enough on certain people. Our Boss told us you would be trouble, before you ever even fought Lt. Surge. Guess we should have believed it."

Once again, Naruto started getting up again, faster than before, "No, _you_ don't get it do you? I lose? Not really. My leg…" Naruto said, pointing to his blood-stained right leg that he was now standing on, "…It's feeling a lot better now."

"And?"

"And Green ain't here anymore. Neither are her Pokémon. Nobody else is here that might get caught in this. There's nobody here but you and me." Why'd his voice sound rougher? And why the hell did he feel more like he'd tear a living creature apart with his bare hands now?

Be that as it may, backing down to a creature like that would do nothing now. It was still a battle. Even if she could feel a palpable level of bloodlust from her adversary, "I still don't see your point little man."

"You wouldn't would you? How about now?" Once he looked up right at her she could see that his eyes weren't blue any longer. Instead they were red with slit pupils.

Sabrina raised an eyebrow when an orange aura formed around Naruto's body. The orange slowly turned to red and took the form of a fox silhouette. Like that thing. That thing she saw when she went into his mind in Celadon City.

Only it wasn't nearly as strong. The creature in Naruto's body made her feel as if she would break if it blinked at her, but Naruto just felt imposing. It was stronger than Naruto had been before though, and that was still more dangerous than anyone that hadn't fought him before could understand. She'd done it twice. She knew better.

Naruto's breath was now coming out in fervid pants, as if he were fighting to control himself, "You guys… really piss me off!" He yelled, releasing a shockwave with his voice strong enough to push Sabrina and Kadabra back a step, "It's just us! And I know Pokémon Gyms can take a beating! So let's see if you can!"

Opening her mouth to make another snide comment at the seemingly rabid young man, whatever she had to say died in her throat when she saw Naruto move faster than a regular human eye could keep up with. She immediately dropped her telekinesis and switched to her mind's eye awareness.

Picking up a feeling on Naruto she dropped that and turned in the direction she felt him in, aiming for another powerful psychic push but hitting nothing and seeing nothing but a red blur. A nasty crack of a fist hitting something sounded out and Sabrina witnessed her Kadabra get knocked aside with a punch, "What?" She instantly took off from the ground and lifted herself high up from the floor.

People didn't move like that. Had he been on all fours? Either way he was far faster, and her Kadabra couldn't Teleport. She had to use a substitute for that technique. A shoddy substitute, but it was better than being outclassed, "Kadabra, Agility again!" Agility instead of Recover, because if Kadabra used Recover Naruto would have just cracked him every single time until he ran out of energy to regenerate.

'If Hypno were here I could make all of this backfire on him with Trick Room!' Trick Room would have made it so that all of Naruto's strength and speed wound up being switched with the target of Sabrina's choice. The look on his face if she could have taken this power and beaten his brains in with it…

But that hadn't been necessary when it had been an option. For as fast as he'd been before turning red, it wasn't enough to justify Trick Room; a technique that would have switched his speed with hers and his strength with hers. Now that Trick Room would have been appropriate and would have allowed her to crush him, the Pokémon she had that could use the move was down and out.

Kadabra's body glowed white before it sped up even more than before. Of course that didn't do anything for its strength, or show it how to deal with Naruto's newfound barbarism. So it just wound up getting grabbed by a mass of chains that wrapped around its arms and legs. Kadabra got dragged along the ground of the battlefield by Naruto's Chakra Chains until he stopped and started slamming it around in a circle.

With Kadabra being taken for a ride Sabrina realized that her last remaining Pokémon was going to be done for, and she would be alone. In the air she sat cross-legged and tried to clear her mind. She had a little bit of time. Meditation was necessary to get to the most potent dregs of her power that she could reach. She couldn't think about anything, she just had to focus.

'Come on…clear your mind.' She thought to herself while Naruto continued to kick the crap out of her Kadabra, finally beginning to swing it around to build up force for something, 'You've got all the time in the world.'

Below on the ground, Naruto was still spinning like a top, giant-swinging a very disoriented and quite finished off Kadabra before he let his chains go and hurled the psychic Pokémon directly at the airborne Sabrina to knock her out of the air.

Before Kadabra could hit her though, Sabrina's eyes opened, revealing them to be completely bright blue with a wispy blue aura around her body that was visible to Naruto. Despite stopping the crash, Kadabra was already defeated. Slowly lowering her loyal fighter to the ground, Sabrina stayed in the air radiating her own power.

"You're unlucky." Sabrina said, her voice having a disembodied echo behind it as she spoke, "I'm the strongest in the entire Team Rocket Triad. I've had this power since I was born. Lived with it and developed it for seventeen years. I threw myself into my own training just as hard as I trained my Pokémon to get to where I am! I can feel your strength, but it won't be enough!"

Naruto stopped for a moment and looked down at his red-clad hands, his fingernails as sharp as animal claws now, "I've had this since I was born too. And it doesn't matter how strong you think you are." He then broke into a sprint on his hands and feet, darting all over to throw off his enemy, "I'll find a way to beat you!"

Sabrina formed an 'x' with her arms and a blue orb formed around her. When she felt Naruto get too close she uncrossed them and let out a cry of great effort as she blew Naruto away. Not only did she knock him aside, but she cracked a portion of her floor and busted some of the rafters above, dropping metal girders and sparks all around.

Not very deterred by the blowback, Naruto used the tail of his chakra cloak to shoot out and grab a rafter to catch himself, proceeding to throw his body back at his enemy. In his right hand he started forming a Rasengan that kept its shape without a clone to help due to the red shell surrounding it.

Even with all of her enhancements pushing her natural abilities to their absolute limits, not much had changed as she hadn't turned the tide back in her favor.

'I can't overpower him!' Sabrina thought to herself. She couldn't catch Naruto's body the way she had previously. That red cloak of energy was keeping her from getting a hold of him, even with her telekinesis strengthened to its fullest extent, 'I can't stop him! Even at full power I can't stop him!'

There had to be something. There was always something. While there was nothing between her and Naruto but air and opportunity she quickly located something that she could use. The Gym that they were in. It didn't matter what he had going for him, the building itself would be tougher.

"You won't get close!" Sabrina shouted, using her enhanced telekinesis to tear entire slabs of the reinforcement paneling off of the Gym battlefield walls to hurl right at Naruto.

Pokémon Gyms saw a lot of destruction. A strong enough Pokémon could bring down a regular building without even meaning to. Gyms had to be sturdier than any other kind of building, especially on the battlefield portions when they were indoors. They had to be nigh impossible to bring down.

Only the strongest of attacks could damage those walls. In Celadon's Gym it took a fully charged Gym Leader's SolarBeam to barely punch a hole through it bit enough for Naruto to squeeze through. This would be three wall panels stacked together.

He'd go splat off of that wall the velocity he used to throw himself at her to attack. All she had to do was move the three large slabs she'd taken in front of her back-to-back and block with them.

Naruto's mouth went agape when he saw what he was flying at, 'No. Hell no. Not a chance I'm getting beaten by a fucking wall! But I need more force to break that! Tone it back fox, tone it back!' With no time or opportunity to generate the needed force he canceled his Rasengan and shut his eyes tightly, hoping that his next move was the appropriate one.

On the other side of the wall, Sabrina continued to hold up the wall until she heard a stiff 'whump' noise collide with her makeshift shield. On the other side the walls had been hit so hard that they all moved back a bit.

'Like a bug on a windshield.' Sabrina thought to herself before letting the massive wall panels fall to the floor with a terrible crash that shook the entire building, 'Koga's little girl will be sad that her playmate got squashed, but she should be dead herself soon enough, so it really won't matter.'

There was no motion anywhere in the entire room that she could see, even when she reached out with her sixth sense to pick something up she couldn't feel any motion. To think, a human being, not even a Pokémon, had driven her to such measures. Now that she didn't have to put up such a strong front she put a hand to her temple as blood dripped from her nose.

Too much mental strain. Complete overuse of too many of her powers too quickly to go with the release of the limiter she had to keep from hurting herself. It had been like the psychic triathlon from hell, and it was none too good for her health. That wasn't even counting the injuries she had from actually getting beaten up over the course of the battle.

"Now that you're dead… I guess I can say I actually respect you." Sabrina said as she slowly lowered herself back to the ground, "Most people with Pokémon mistake the strength of their Pokémon as their own strength. You fought me right alongside them every step of the way. Too bad though."

As she continued to look at the stack of heavy wall panels that had been used to crush Naruto, she once again saw something amazing. They actually began to move. And lift up off of the floor. And she saw orange underneath.

'That's impossible.'

A lot of orange.

"Hggh." Kyuubi-charged Naruto and his dozens clones grunted, straining as they lifted the thousands of pounds of wall paneling off of them. Standing upright and pressing the wall panels over their heads they all tossed them aside, making sure their original was freed before the copies dispelled.

Naruto's red chakra cloak had vanished while he'd been pinned. His eyes were still red and his whisker-marks were still darker, but there was no red cloak any longer. If he had looked a mess before it was far worse now. But he was alive and well, and the injuries were mostly cosmetic.

"That's not possible." Sabrina said, shaking her head, "Let's say I didn't just crush you underneath all of that. Let's say that you didn't just lift that off of you. Even if you hadn't done that, you still ran headfirst into all of them going as fast as you had been going! Your skull and brains should be paste on the bottom of those things right now!"

"Kage Bunshin airbags." Naruto said with a pained smirk on his face, "I turned down the chakra so I could make like fifty that would actually listen to me to cushion the crash… and it still hurt like hell, dattebayo."

And for probably the first time, despite all that had happened since their first fight, Sabrina was finally left speechless, "I… you… but… those weighed…" She eventually gave up trying to eloquently orate and had to shake her head with a humorless smirk, "I really don't have any other backhanded compliments to insult you with. That was truly impressive."

"Thank you."

"I'm still going to kill you though."

"Come on! Can't you just quit already!"

"Won't you?"

"…You have a good point. I can't ask you to quit if I won't."

Once again, Sabrina's eyes let out a scary blue glow and her entire body was surrounded by her outpouring psychic power once more, "You should fire up your strange red energy again, unless you actually are giving up." The wistful smile she got in response didn't sit well with her however.

"I would do that." Naruto started to say, his face taking on a bit of a lopsided grin, "But clones can't really take how intense the Kyuubi's chakra can be when we let it loose." Before Sabrina could ask what the hell he was referring to, 'Naruto' vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

And then everything went all painful and dark.

XxX

Breathing heavily, Naruto, sans inhuman red chakra seeping from his pores, stood over Sabrina alongside one last clone that disappeared once its job was finished. She lay in a bit of cratered floor with an angry red spiral mark through her clothes and into her skin. That would take a while to heal without this continent having any medic-nin.

"You really… should have turned… your E.S.P. stuff back on instead of getting ready to fight with my clone." Naruto said, hunched over, sweating, and bleeding with his hands on his knees, "Because that really shouldn't have worked. Oh man… basic misdirection."

Basic for him anyway.

He had to turn off the outpouring of the Kyuubi's chakra though to get the drop on her, otherwise she'd have felt him coming all the way. That didn't apply to clones that he'd made while under the chakra's influence. When he'd been flying at the wall he scaled back what he'd been taking from the Kyuubi in order to make clones that could think clearly but still be tough enough for most to survive hitting the wall.

They'd managed to create enough space underneath the wall panels for him to squeeze his way out and wait for them to distract Sabrina. The one that she saw still looked like him, with physical features similar to the basic orange chakra cloak, sans the actual visible chakra, and she took it seriously enough as a threat to remain in attack mode just in case. The real Naruto had turned the Kyuubi's chakra off altogether to try and maintain some level of stealth.

Thus she couldn't sense him and a later created clone making a Rasengan elsewhere.

The poor girl got crisscrossed too much to make heads or tails on what the real threat had been. That was the problem with fighting a replicator.

"You're one of the strongest people I've ever beaten." Naruto admitted in their solitude, bending down to pick the Marsh Badge off of the front collar of her shirt. Hey, he did beat a Gym Leader, "But you still LOOOOST! TOO BAD!" Getting his win back felt so good. Revenge for getting dropped in Celadon City's Rocket Game Corner, "Let me read _your_ mind right now! You're probably thinking that Uzumaki Naruto just whipped my ass!"

Sabrina of course didn't offer a rebuttal or a response. Getting pulverized into the ground with a Rasengan would do that to you.

Naruto walked over and picked up all of his Poke Balls, choosing to leave all of his ninja tools behind. All of the caltrops, shuriken, smoke bombs that had fallen out of his pocket. They were too troublesome to pick up right then. He was so beaten up he didn't care. Only about his Pokémon.

From there he slogged his way to the back room that belonged to Sabrina. Throwing his body against the wall he used it to help walk to the door that he opened up to find Green inside, sitting on Sabrina's bed and holding her injured right arm. Still though, she held up a thumbs-up and a shaky smile.

The reason being that Mr. Mime was dead asleep on the floor with Green's Jigglypuff standing proudly right by him.

"Barrier's down?" Naruto asked, dropping to his butt from the wall and leaving a bloodstain down the wall as he did so.

"Unless she has another Mr. Mime strong enough to enact a working one over the whole city I'd say it is." Green answered, staring at the physically spent Naruto with an unreadable expression of thought on her face, "How did you win? Sabrina's been known to be able to easily beat trained Pokémon by herself."

"Well apparently she can't beat trained Pokémon and me at the same time." Naruto said, wiping at his cheeks.

All Green did was nod without saying anything. That didn't answer her question, but honestly she wasn't sure that she wanted to know how Naruto won. Even in the other room where she had been, the noise from the battlefield had been terrible.

"So what now?" Naruto said, pushing himself up against the wall, "We've got to go right? We've got to get to everyone else."

"Take a rest." Green said, letting her Jigglypuff jump onto the bed with her so that she could hug it, "Look at you. You look like you pulled yourself out of a meat grinder. Walk a straight line without having to use the wall and I'll say it's a good idea to go right now."

"Help me walk out of here so we can get on Ranbouen and I'll give you a Moon Stone for your Jigglypuff or your Clefairy."

"One for both. Throw in a quarter of the share you'll get after you split the rest of them with the ninja girl and you've got a deal."

"Deal."

XxX

(With Janine – Roof of Silph Co. Building)

Janine felt like she was swinging at shadows.

She'd get the feeling that there was something touching at her neck and she would move to retaliate with the Steel Winged Golbat on her forearm, but when she turned and swung she would hit nothing. And though she never heard anything she could swear there was mocking cackling being sent her way.

The truth of the matter was that she was terrified. For everything that she had said, and for as much as she knew that this was something that she had to do, she was scared. Having a sense of responsibility didn't knock the fear out of you.

'Calm down girl.' She thought to herself, trying to settle her breathing from being so erratic, 'Just focus. Freaking out won't do you any good. He wants that.' Making eye-contact with Golbat she pointed at her Pokémon's own mouth and gestured to the area around them.

Using a low Supersonic to keep from spooking Koga into an action that Janine wouldn't be prepared for, Golbat kept its mouth open to use a crude kind of sonar to expose Koga's position. Soundlessly, his eyes jerked in a certain direction and without wasting a heartbeat Janine instantly turned that way and lashed out with a slash from Golbat's wings.

A surprised Koga still managed to avoid the attack, losing a portion of his scarf in the process as he backflipped away from his daughter. She dashed in to try and press her advantage only to find that just because she could locate him didn't mean that she could actually hit him. For her troubles she wound up getting kicked in the belly and propelled back twenty feet onto her back before she jumped right back up.

"I told you." Koga said, taunting her as she squared off with him again, "You've made the last mistake I fear you'll ever make. You should have fled after you chose to forsake my teachings, and never stopped running."

"I'll admit that I thought about it." Janine admitted, holding her belly where she'd been kicked, "I didn't want to fight you. But then me and Babyface started running into Team Rocket more and more, and I figured that it was just fate. I'd inevitably have to fight you."

"And you decided that you'd rather die by your father's hand than never see me again?" Koga continued to taunt and joke at her expense, "That's sweet. But you should have just eloped with Namikaze's son and disappeared. It might have saved both of your lives."

Realizing where she got her annoying trash-talking skills from, Janine ignored it and shook her head, not willing to get riled up, "I'm tired of running away from my responsibility. I have to do what's right for the entire Gym, the entire town, and all of Kanto too! I should have committed myself to fighting you long before I actually resolved to do this!"

"How noble." Koga spat as if hearing her words was a fate similar to swallowing a bitter poison, "And those morals are your weakness. Only when you cast away all sense of what is right or wrong, and realize that power is the only thing that you are measured by as a person in the end can you ever truly reach my level."

He had done his best to do so. To make her into someone that could carry on and reach past his own heights after his time came one way or another. For years he had made strides, had created a cruel little girl in his image, one that would do anything to win at the expense of anyone and anything. But she it turned out that in the end she was too soft.

She was now a shell of the perfect kunoichi that she had once been. Progressively tainted by the influence of the filthy Konoha ninjas that simply would not leave him alone. First fifteen years ago and once again today. Twice now things had been ruined by them, directly or indirectly.

"No… it's not." Janine replied with a glare, "Having morals keeps you from doing stupid things like desecrating the sacred gravesites of an entire town, or burying a whole island underneath lava." It made her sick that he could smirk at being reminded at some of his atrocities, "Not having morals is more of a weakness, because while it might work out at the time, who knows when it'll go wrong for you?"

"That's completely asinine. I can see that you're even more lost than I'd thought. Killing you now will be a mercy."

"Is it? I've done a few bad things. But there are some things I'd never do, no matter what. You see, you might risk upsetting some people living the way I do, but for you? If you pit yourself against the world you're definitely going to piss off the wrong person. And then you're through."

"And you're that wrong person?"

"As far as you're concerned, yes." Janine concluded, brushing her own cheek with her thumb, "And to be quite honest with you, I'd rather have other people around me and be weaker than to be strong with no one to love me."

Of all the sentimental rubbish. She was still just a teenage girl after all it seemed.

"Poison Sting!" From Ekans' mouth, dozens of tiny poison needles flew out and forced Janine on the defensive once again. But he didn't like the smirk that mirrored his heavily that appeared on her face after she avoided his attack.

"Double Team!" The illusion of a technique created not only several copies of Golbat, but due to it being attached to her arm it did the same for Janine. Clever girl. But that just meant that he had more targets to choose from in order to hit the correct one.

Koga leapt back onto a water tower that allowed him to oversee much of the rooftop and held up his arm without his Ekans on it, revealing a Poke Ball, "Grimer, Mud Bomb!" From the blob of slime's mouth it fired out multiple globs of mud that hit all of the Janine/Golbat combinations until none were left, "Hm."

In his blindspot the real Janine had her fist poised to strike him, her own Grimer comprising a sort of living body armor on her upper torso and arms. Koga figured that she would try something like that to get close and had already been prepared to block her.

"Strength!"

That command however, changed everything.

And Koga was punched by his daughter hard enough to send him flying off of the water tower. He roughly landed on the ground letting out a cough as his Grimer was soon knocked off of the tower as well and hit the rooftop as well right near him.

Coughing up a touch of blood, Koga sat up and with a gesture of his hand his Grimer took a similar position as armor on his body, "Like I said, no matter how well you learned your lessons I'm the one that taught you everything you know. You can't beat me with my own techniques, and we both know that my Grimer is at a higher level than yours. Look at you. It's more cumbersome than protective. It's too big for your body, and too heavy for you to fight me in."

They wore Grimer as protection for two reasons. One reason was to make themselves harder to hurt in a fight, as Grimer was a very durable Pokémon. The second reason was because Grimer wasn't a very mobile creature and otherwise would be very easy to hit. But a Grimer normally weighed around fifty pounds and would weigh the wearer down.

If he had been faster than her before she'd be a snail compared to him now.

"There's more than one way to win with these techniques other than how you taught me Otou-sama." Janine said as her father got back up newly outfitted with his own Grimer, "It's all about coming up with wrinkles. Minimize!" Janine's Grimer shrank to smoothly fit her thirteen year-old upper body to form, "How do you like that?"

Minimize was supposed to be used to make a Pokémon smaller and harder to hit without sacrificing any other important physical properties about it such as speed or strength. To use it in such a manner as Janine's use was highly unorthodox.

He didn't teach her that. She'd trained her Pokémon to use a technique that already had an established method of use to be done in a different way. That was not what they did. She had basically warped the attack of Minimize to suit a manufactured need.

In return, Janine had to thank training with Naruto and watching him do similar things with his own Pokémon and their abilities. Now she was allowed a full range of movement and had to sacrifice none of her speed to hold and use her Grimer and Golbat in tandem.

"This means nothing." Koga said before holding up his Ekans, "Dark Pulse!" From its mouth it fired a beam of black circles at Janine that she avoided swiftly before coming in again to try and damage him with her Golbat's Steel Wing, "Double Team."

Much like before, only with Koga's Grimer instead of Janine's Golbat, he formed multiple copies of himself and his Pokémon. She wound up striking at a fake before trying to keep moving while she distinguished which one was real. If she wasted time trying to attack all of the fakes to get rid of them she'd be dead before she found the real one, 'The fakes don't create shadows beneath them.'

"Good girl, looking for the signs." Her breathing hitched in her throat at the sound of her father's voice right in her ear behind her, "You're not a complete waste after all, but I'm afraid you've failed. Iron Tail."

She tried to jump forward to avoid what was to come, but it didn't matter much as she was still stabbed from behind by the hardened tail of Koga's Ekans. A gasp slipped from her lips as she fell forward onto her face amid Koga's laughter.

Blood trailed out from beneath her onto the roof as she shivered in place. So he actually struck through to her body? Well that was the price she paid for using Minimize the way she did. Streamlining Grimer's body to fit her own properly made it thinner, thus it was easier to stab through to get to her directly.

"It wasn't a bad idea." Koga admitted as he stood over his daughter while she continued to bleed, "But don't try to alter my teachings. They were already perfect. Hence why I taught them to you."

"Dad… you're an ass." Janine said in a pained voice before quickly turning over and allowing her Golbat to flap his wings in Koga's direction, "Air Cutter!" Light blue crescents of wind flew at Koga and cut into his Grimer and through it into him as well due to the close range that she had allowed it to fire from, "You missed you bitter old bastard!"

Koga stumbled back and spit blood from his mouth even while Janine was still on the ground. Chunks of his Grimer had been carved off, but it would be alright. On the other hand, the parts of him that had been cut into happened to be a bit more important, "I did no such thing!" He looked down at the blood dripping off of the tail of his Ekans. There was no way she played possum, "I went right through you!"

"You didn't hit anything vital." She reasoned, still breathing in labored breaths, "I couldn't dodge you so, yeah. I did that. God this hurts. I can bleed out for a little bit though." She cringed as blood trickled from her lips, "…By the way. Flamethrower."

The face of her Grimer appeared on her chest and opened its mouth to shoot a steady stream of flames right at Koga who jumped back but found himself unable to dodge, "Damn it! Acid Armor!" The poisonous reinforcement of his Grimer's skin allowed him to survive the flames while he covered his face with his arms. His Ekans was burned rather badly and hissed in pain, but it was a necessary sacrifice.

"Aerial Ace!"

Koga felt the sensation of being punched in the stomach as the heat from the fire subsided. A result of Janine's Golbat flying from its perch on her arm like a falcon to slam itself into him as fast as it could go.

Once again he stumbled back but refused to go down. He kept underestimating her and she kept pulling out surprises that managed to hurt him. With a growl he saw her Golbat trying to circle around and fly back to her, and he was having none of that.

The whole her fighting him back thing had been cute, but now it was simply trying his patience.

"Ekans, Glare!" A powerful stare had Ekans make eye contact with the aerial bat Pokémon, somehow causing every muscle in its body to lock up and fall out of the sky like a rock.

Golbat bounced off of the rooftop like a rock and didn't move again.

Turning his hateful gaze back to Janine he jumped into the air and released his Weezing from its Poke Ball, temporarily using it to slightly levitate above the battlefield, "Die! Sludge Bomb!" From both of the mouths of the poisonous landmine-looking Pokémon it shot a pair of slimy orbs, one brown, the other black, that collided together before exploding in a massive spray of sludge that covered everything on the roof, including Janine.

The explosion hurt her by itself, but being covered in hazardous material, wounded as she was, was not going to end well and she was knowledgeable enough about poison Pokémon to know it.

Getting up once again, Janine looked up at her father, looking as imposing as ever. She felt like she was a little girl again being put through her paces, only there was no stopping due to catastrophic injury such as the ones they had both dealt each other.

"I'm still the master of poison Pokémon girl." Koga said as his Weezing slowly descended but still held itself high enough that he was above her, "And from the touch of green in your cheeks you've been poisoned." He saw her reaching for her supplies and wasn't having any of that. Backflipping off of his Weezing he propelled it at her with a kick, "Thief!"

It smashed into her and knocked her to the ground once more. Weezing returned to Koga's side and dropped an Antidote into his hand, getting a chuckle out of him, "Oh, I'm sorry. Did you need that?"

Janine could feel her head swimming at the poison flowing through her system as she stared up into the sky from her back, 'Damn it.' She felt so weak. Closing her eyes felt like it would be so comfortable, but she knew that was just a symptom of being poisoned. To make sure that the last thing she did was fall asleep she began forcing the fingers on her left hand to wiggle no matter what else she was doing.

When they stopped and she couldn't even allow them to move any longer that would mean that she had nothing left, and her life would probably end.

With her free hand she reached for another Poke Ball and threw it as far as she could to release her Venomoth. She landed by her downed trainer to try and help in some way, but Janine just shook her head and gestured for her to take to the skies after giving her an order.

Koga raised an eyebrow in amusement at Janine still trying to fight back in some way, "What is this?" He asked with a chuckle to himself, "I was sort of hoping that with your last breaths you'd try to fight me with the Spinarak I gave you as a child, for nostalgia's sake, but for those that would still hope for victory I guess this would be the better plan of action."

"You talk too much." Janine said as she slid herself back-first against an AC unit to try and help herself stand back up, "I guess I get it from you." As she spoke, her Venomoth began multiplying in the air, trying to confound anyone that looked up there as to which one was real.

"Double Team again?" Koga said, "I've got high enough ground to have the point of view to know if the real one tries to move out somewhere it shouldn't be."

"I'm not trying to confuse you." Janine said, pulling herself the rest of the way back up to her feet, "I'm just giving you more of her to love. Attract!"

The illusionary technique from Janine's Venomoth was seen by Koga's Weezing, and the effect worked almost immediately. It wasn't really known just how a Weezing could find itself attracted to a Venomoth in any way, shape, or form, but apparently it was possible because that was just what happened.

It was absolutely preposterous! A powerful Koga Clan ninja utilizing such an amorous technique to turn the tables! And no, he wasn't just thinking that because it was happening to his Weezing.

It was basically useless to him in battle now as long as Janine's Venomoth was in eyeshot. Thus he returned it to its Poke Ball with a grumble and a gripe.

"Why'd you call Weezing back Otou-sama?" Janine asked, almost mockingly. For all of the setbacks she was still able to chip away at him here and there when given the chance. She made her openings count.

"You know full well why." Koga replied with a glare, "Your Venomoth bewitched him."

"Oh. Well, yeah when people truly love something they won't do things that will hurt them." She said before feigning realization, "Oh, sorry you didn't realize that. Maybe that's why you made me do all of those things I didn't want to do!"

"Acid!"

Janine had to dodge the thick viscous liquid from Koga's Ekans that was still in play around his arm, but after it melted into the AC unit right near her it exploded, knocking her away again. Her Grimer was certainly earning its keep, "Venomoth, Confusion!"

The Ekans on Koga's arm found itself outlined in blue and began getting lifted off of the ground, with Koga along for the ride until he freed himself from Ekans' wrap and landed on the roof. It was lucky that he did so, because Venomoth proceeded to throw Ekans into the water tower hard enough to punch a hole through it.

Having used that opportunity to get back up, Janine was forced to sink back to the ground on her knees due to a forceful fist that she found buried in her stomach. Her Venomoth tried to swoop in from behind with a Tackle, but Koga was ready, "Fling."

In his stead, his Grimer covering his body as armor reached into his own supply pouch and threw metal stars up at Venomoth, hitting its wings and effectively clipping them. A lucky critical hit to say the least.

On the ground on her knees, forehead pressed to the rooftop, Janine coughed up blood onto the ground due to the aggravation of the stab wound she had suffered earlier. Underneath her Grimer her clothes were matted with blood.

"Look at me." Koga said, grabbing her by the neck before lifting her up off of the ground. All he did was just stare at her. Other than the slight green coloring from the poison in her body she was as pale as a ghost, "You look so much like your mother." He said quietly to himself as part of his Grimer suit extended to cover her nose and mouth.

He was smothering her to death to ensure that she died. Her muscles were so weak that she could barely lift her arms to reach at Koga's grip around her neck or at the Grimer extension covering her nose and mouth. She couldn't even issue her ultra-obedient Pokémon serving as her armor to let go and attack due to her lack of ability to speak.

From how he was holding her, the Fuchsia City Gym Leader walked over to the end of the skyscraper and held her up over the edge when he saw her eyes drooping shut and her arms drop limply at her sides. He wasn't taking chances in case she was playing dead again. He'd know she was gone when he heard the faint smack of her body on the pavement below.

"You fought very well." Koga admitted in regards to her performance in battle against him. His arm was held out fully to drop her, "When you see her I want you to tell Midori that I'm sorry for what I had to do to you." Janine's fingers were still twitching, but he didn't notice that until her eyes shot open and she punched the elbow of his fully extended arm to break it at the joint.

The shock of the sudden attack overrode the pain that he should have been feeling. He still wound up dropping her, but she was able to catch the ledge and hung over the side. Great. So that bought her a few extra seconds.

By this point Koga had to bite down and grit his teeth to avoid crying out in pain from his newly broken arm. His Grimer suit would keep it set until he could get it treated, but first he had to kill off his former daughter. Whether he dropped her or otherwise, as long as she fell to her death it would work out.

Wasting no time when he saw her fingers hanging over the side her stomped on one hand, getting a shout of pain out of her and freeing her grasp with it.

'This is just great….' Janine thought to herself. She'd managed to get free only to end up hanging by her very fingertips hundreds of feet in Saffron City's skies, "Curse!" She could feel the strength of her Grimer increase around her, strengthening her grip and fortifying her ability to hold on even as Koga's heel slammed down on the fingers of her last remaining hand to hold on with.

There wasn't going to be any miracle catching her out of the sky this time.

"You lose." Koga sneered down at her, grinding his heel against her fingers, "Let go. Just give up and fall. It won't hurt anymore."

Hearing him tell her to give up angered her as she formed a fist with her free hand and cocked her fist back, "You give up! Strength!" With her Grimer's temporarily found super-strength, she punched the very ledge that she had been holding onto, sending both her and Koga falling over the side.

XxX

"You don't look so good." Green pointed out, holding onto Naruto as they both sped through Saffron City's streets on the back of his Arcanine. She was holding on around his waist tightly, even though she didn't seem to notice just how painful that was for him, "Do you want me to drive?"

"No, you couldn't control him when he's going this fast." Naruto replied, gritting his teeth. He would have used Kamisori to fly instead of Ranbouen to run, but he wasn't certain if Green would freak out or not having to ride on the back of his Aerodactyl.

So he had to take the bumpier ride on the back of his first Pokémon.

At least he didn't have to fight anything. He and Green tied Sabrina up inside of her Gym and would come back for her later after they made sure that everything was alright elsewhere. Not that she'd be moving an inch anytime soon after the beating that had been laid on her.

Red never caught up after saying that he would have, and there hadn't been a peep from Janine who had decided that she would go after Blue who had separated from them upon entering the city.

Reaching the outside of the Silph Co. HQ building, Naruto and Green found a quite heavily injured Blue sitting outside of the front doors.

"What happened to you?"

"Moltres."

Ooh. Enough said. But apparently he had won because if he hadn't he wouldn't even have been there.

"Why are you out here then?"

"Red's inside busting up what's left of Team Rocket on the bottom floor." Blue explained, "The elevators inside were sabotaged by Koga before I left Janine to fight him so I could take Moltres. No one's coming down that way to get out, and Red's Snorlax is covering a stairwell with my Machamp covering the other."

So everyone was accounted for except for Naruto's usual travelling partner. And then they heard the sound of mortar busting and all looked up to see large chunks of the building falling, along with people. Two people. People that looked like ninjas.

XxX

Even as they both fell, Janine and Koga glared holes through each other, seemingly not caring that they were both about to die. Mostly because Koga was expecting Janine to do the only smart thing that she could do at the moment, even though it would save him too.

From the look of absolute anger on her face she knew it too even as she went for the last active Poke Ball she had on her person to do what was needed.

"Ariados, Spider Web!"

Her red and black spider immediately shot out a web that spanned from building to building, holding up everything that had been falling previously. The chunks of Silph Co. that had been falling wound up caught safely in the net along with both Janine and Koga.

He opened his mouth to issue a command to his Grimer that would finish her. He knew that she didn't have the will to go through with killing both him and herself at the same time, but it was cut short when the tip of Ariados' leg pierced his chest from the front. Koga had never seen it coming, and he didn't understand why until Janine spoke again.

"Sucker Punch." Janine said with noticeable difficulty in her voice for any of multiple reasons. Her wounds, the poison that had almost finished the job with her, or the fact that she had just run her father through with the leg of her strongest Pokémon.

It had taken the entire battle to do so, but she had finally put herself in a position to beat Koga to the punch. She didn't say another word.

Instead of continuing to fight, Koga merely allowed himself to lean back, off of the leg that had just stabbed into him to lie back on the spider web that kept him suspended in the air. His armor had failed because finally his Grimer had run out of steam, "Perhaps my next order should have been Endure, instead of something that would have destroyed you."

"Lie to me."

Koga looked over at Janine with confusion etched on his face until he saw tears sliding down her cheeks. As weak and as near death as she was she was still crying, for him.

"Lie to me and tell me that the only reason Ariados got you was because you let him." Janine said, "Tell me your next order was going to be a gimme. Something I could have beaten no matter what I asked him to do. What was your next order going to be?"

Koga just laughed quietly to himself, "I would have ordered Grimer to use Gunk Shot to finish you. You would never have avoided it. You can't even move you're so badly poisoned. Had you never taught him Sucker Punch I would have killed you. Without a doubt. I believe I've gotten weaker than I used to be back when I was defeated by Namikaze."

Hearing that didn't do anything to stop her floodgates from breaking, "I told you to lie to me. I wanted you to lie to me. I'd rather be guilty forever for killing my father that held back than be in the right because you really tried to kill me. I can't hate you, no matter what you do!" She said as Ariados skittered back over to her, "You were my hero. You still are. You were the best, and all I wanted was to prove I could be worthy to carry on for the Gym."

"And now you have…" Koga said with a smirk, "…If you survive the poison. But I believe you will." He gestured with his head down to get her to look that way and there she saw Kamisori flying up, more than likely to retrieve her.

Good old Naruto. It was good to have friends that cared. It was so much better than being alone.

"This battle doesn't end until one of us stops breathing." Koga said as his eyes got heavier and his heaving chest went lower and lower with every breath, "It looks like I'm beating you to the grave. I lost a part of me a long time ago. I thought it made me weak and led to my greatest defeat, but upon casting it aside I did not grow in strength. Do not allow the same thing to happen to you. Learn from me in death what I was not able to teach you in life."

He didn't say another word, even as Kamisori hovered in the air and Naruto jumped off onto the web, losing his balance due to the net-like consistency of the surface.

Janine couldn't take her eyes off of the form of her father that had stopped breathing right before her eyes, because of her. Even when Naruto held her face in his hands and started looking her over, recalling her Grimer to its Poke Ball she couldn't look away. It was a good thing she couldn't hear anything going on around her either because Naruto was quite upset with the wounds he found on her once he had given her Grimer its rest.

With all of the fussing, she still couldn't hear a thing. It all seemed like white noise to her.

"…nine! Janine! Oi, say something damn it!"

From the touch of green and the lack of color in her face, Naruto knew she had been poisoned and pulled out an Antidote from his own supply before jabbing it in her arm. She didn't even respond to the syringe.

Naruto did manage to breathe a sigh of relief when her normal color started to return and he finally turned around to see Koga. He wasn't moving a muscle, and blood was dripping down from beneath him. Even so, he had never dropped the smirk from his face. Oddly enough it seemed appropriate for someone like him.

This wasn't Naruto's first rodeo, but even so, it was sort of amazing to see, "…You-?" He didn't even want to finish what he was saying lest it do even more damage. All he did was look back at Janine's teary eyes as she nodded weakly. He just sat down in the spider web with her and let her cry on him.

He didn't know what to say. What could he say?

His partner-in-crime had just had to kill her last surviving parent, and she really needed to get herself and her Pokémon somewhere to heal (he did too, but he'd be fine for the most part even if he never saw a doctor at all).

For the most part, this was over. Team Rocket had been hit with a haymaker and they would not be getting back up in this lifetime.

Red and Blue could handle everything else with the Pallet Town citizens, and who knew what Green really wanted out of her participation in the temporary partnership and the fighting. They didn't need him for anything any longer. Someone else did though.

But Naruto had a feeling that this wasn't quite over yet.

* * *

><p><strong>It's the middle of freaking December and I haven't had to wear a coat <strong>_**once**_** this year. What the hell is wrong with this planet?**

**Other than that, the last few days I've had since my break began have been amazing. The best sleep I've gotten in around six months and I've got a month of it to go before I become a functioning insomniac again. My girlfriend isn't a fan though, because apparently I'm tough to wake up. I call b.s. because I randomly wake up several times in the middle of the night, but what do I know?**

**And… you stopped caring and 'x'ed out of page right around the second sentence of the AN, and that's cool. I totally get it.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, more will be coming at some point.**

**Kenchi out.**


	18. Long, Strange Trip

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. If I had three wishes, one of those wishes would be for a Growlithe or a Cubone. The other two wishes would be for a particular set of superpowers and musical instrument ability on something other than a trumpet or a piano. Not bad instruments when they're played right, but I want to be like Rusty in the episode of Squidbillies when he sold his soul to the devil so he could play guitar. That kind of talent.

**Chapter 18: Long, Strange Trip**

* * *

><p>It had been a week and a half since the conclusion of the clash in Saffron City. Red and Blue had gone back to Pallet Town with Professor Oak and the rest of the citizens. Green had managed to rip off quite a bit of money from Silph Co.'s HQ building before hightailing it out of town, after taking a split of half of Naruto's share of the accursed Moon Stones per their agreement of course.<p>

In the aftermath of the battle, Sabrina had somehow disappeared even though Naruto had tied her up well. She'd been thoroughly beaten though, and Team Rocket had been broken. Zapdos had taken Lt. Surge out in a rather ironic fashion, and Koga had been killed in battle by his own daughter.

That had been the most important thing to take out of the entire experience for one of the kids that had freed the city in violent battle.

Back in Fuchsia City a funeral was actually held for its former Gym Leader, the ninjutsu master of the Pokémon Continent, Koga. He was buried on the mansion grounds of the Gym next to his wife in the gravesite set aside for his clan's members. He was buried right next to his wife, Janine's mother.

Despite all that he had done to so many other places and so many other people and their Pokémon, in Fuchsia City he was still revered as the strongest Pokémon Trainer that had ever come from there. His skill as a Gym Leader had put them on the map as he had been the one to take his clan's teachings and actually create a Gym for it decades ago to challenge himself and his underlings.

Almost the entire city turned out for the service. Even Erika had made it out from Celadon City to be there for her friend. Jiraiya and Naruto stayed near the back, out of sight for the most part while Aya and Janine were right up front for hours hearing from everyone about how even though her father had been a great man someone needed to stop him, and that she had done the right thing. It had been a direct formal challenge for the title of Gym Leader. By custom it had to be to the death. Everyone knew that.

She didn't shed a tear the entire time, even though it had lasted for hours. She had gotten it all out well before then. Naruto knew. He had been right there when she had. If she had anymore tears left to cry after she had cried herself to sleep in Saffron City he would have had no idea where her body had processed the extra water to spare for them.

After the ceremony had all ended she could still be found out in the gravesite, just sitting in the grass and staring at the gravestones of her mother and father. The fact that she was wearing a formal black dress for the occasion didn't matter. She didn't even notice Naruto coming up behind her until he sat down in the grass with her, wearing black formal clothes as well.

The man had been an enemy, but if his own daughter could forgive enough to treat this the way she should have and Jiraiya could too there was no reason he couldn't as well.

Naruto wished he knew what to say, but he didn't. He never had parents, so he didn't know how he would feel once they died. He had been to the Sandaime Hokage's funeral, but this wasn't even close to being like that situation in any way.

Koga hadn't died protecting anything. He was killed in battle against his daughter while trying to enact a dark organization's control over all of Kanto. He had killed many, many people even before he'd caused an active volcano on Cinnabar Island to erupt. He'd ruined the lives of humans and of Pokémon alike that Team Rocket had targeted. There wasn't any redeeming him, even if he'd felt the slightest bit of remorse for anything he'd done.

And Janine had killed him. She'd killed him before he could kill her. She'd killed him because she had to.

It didn't make it hurt any less though.

"He was… such a terrible man who did so many terrible things." Janine said to Naruto without even being prompted to, "Everyone kept coming up to me saying how they were sorry about what I had to do. That they understood our customs but they'd miss such a great man. He wasn't that great. He was just strong, and a lot of what he did benefitted Fuchsia City. He'd never done anything to this place."

But he'd also neglected many of his duties not just to the Gym, but to the city too that granted the Gym its status to begin with. Fuchsia City's Safari Zone was supposed to be under the supervision of the Gym Leader of Fuchsia in order to stop poachers and destructive situations from the Pokémon themselves within. And according to what everyone said, he used to be far stronger.

Even so, Koga still never harmed Fuchsia City himself, as far as they knew anyway.

"I couldn't speak during the service." Janine said, never taking her eyes off of the gravestone, "Aya-obasan said so many things about the man that Otou-sama was. The way he used to be before he became obsessed with gaining strength. Before Okaa-sama died. Before your father beat him to stop the conflict between our clan and your Konoha visitors. I don't remember anything pleasant. I don't think he could look at me the way I wanted him to, because of my mother and how she died. Because I look like her."

Looking at the gravestone next to Koga's Naruto could see a portrait of Janine's mother on it just like there was one of Koga on his. He could see the resemblance in the face, though Janine wasn't finished growing up yet. The picture made him wonder what Janine would look like if she kept her hair out of her ponytail more often. It also made him think about him and his parents, or his father anyway since Minato was the only one he had really seen, even if it was just in his head.

"That's not fair though." Naruto answered, finally finding a point where he could say something to his kunoichi friend, "I mean, didn't that make you all he had left of her? Why wouldn't he look at you?"

"He looked at me, but it was always like he was looking through me. I don't think he ever looked me in the eyes once after she died." Janine shook her head and diverted her eyes to the ground with a sigh, "I don't remember him ever saying that he loved me, and he tried to turn me into someone like him, called me useless when it didn't work, all of that… but it still hurts." She said, pointing at her chest, "It hurts that he's dead and it hurts that I killed him."

Naruto ran a hand through his hair as he looked over at her, "I don't know what to say. I wish I had something smart to tell you, or something that would make you feel better, but I couldn't tell you where to start." He admitted. It was hurting him that she was so sad. She hadn't smiled or tried to be playful one time since the battle at Saffron City, "I don't know. I can't even imagine having parents, let alone one of them dying, let alone having one of them try to kill me."

She did actually look at him and gift him with a grateful smile though, "It's okay Babyface. You mean well, and you're a good friend. Thank you for putting up with me for all these months. I know it wasn't easy." She said before frowning deeply, "Do you remember the terms of our arrangement? You've gotten me home and we've split the Moon Stones, so I'll leave you alone now."

Leave him alone? Right. They had terms for how long he was to be 'responsible' for her after she'd tried to rob the museum in Pewter City. He'd completely forgotten about that until right that very instant.

He didn't want her to leave him alone.

She taught him so much about Kanto and about Pokémon in general. He'd taught her so much about how to fight in an unorthodox manner. She even admitted to using several of his ideas to get the surprise edge over Koga in their fight. Yeah, it was hard and more often than not they would work the other's last nerve just for shits and giggles, but it was fun.

Now she was the Gym Leader though, and she had a responsibility. She couldn't just go where she wanted when she wanted, and he couldn't just stay. Jiraiya had something he needed to do to find out what the reason was as to why they couldn't summon, and he needed to keep on training himself for his eventual return to Konoha.

Janine reached out for Naruto and held his hand. He looked down in surprise, but didn't try to get her to let go. Why would he? It was strange, but it wasn't a bad kind of strange. As a matter of fact a girl had never even held his hand before.

The moment he started to give back a grip of his own, she let go quickly, and Naruto turned his palm over to find a small trinket in his hand. A little figure in the form of a pink heart.

"The Soul Badge." Janine said, holding up one of her own that belonged to her, "You've earned it as far as I'm concerned, ten times over. You're the bravest person I know, and I'm glad I met you when I did." She let out something between a laugh and a sob, "Heh, look at me. I'm happy about a failed burglary that would have left me rich."

"Technically…" Naruto said trying to keep her from crying again, "Technically I did earn it the right way. I mean I beat you outside of Viridian Forest, so I actually beat the Fuchsia City Gym Leader even if she wasn't the Gym Leader at the time."

It actually did put a bit of a smile back on Janine's face. A stupid joking observation actually worked, "That's not how it works. You think you're so smart."

"Shh. Don't tell anybody."

"…"

"…"

"I'm really gonna miss you Babyface. I mean it."

"Me too. But I'm still gonna be around. We just won't be travelling together anymore. It doesn't mean I'll never see you again."

He had a bad habit of finding himself attached to people. While he liked Red, Blue, and (Kami help him) even Green due to the fact that they had all suffered through the hell of a mess in Saffron right along with him, their leaving wasn't the same at all. All of them had their faults… oh man did he ever know that they all had their faults, but that didn't matter very much. Even he and Janine had their share, even though he would never admit himself as being anything less than awesome to another person.

Flaws notwithstanding, Naruto had gotten used to the girl's presence. Her face, her voice, training with her, fighting alongside her, fighting _with_ her, dealing with money with her, all of it.

"For now anyway." Janine said in regards to Naruto and whether they'd meet again, "But when you do go back to the Elemental Nations I hope you'll at least say goodbye. And for now you and Mister Jiraiya had better come back when I've got this place running smoothly. Fuchsia City Gym is my responsibility now, and I want to show you what I can do with it."

From not too far away, by one of the breezeways of the mansion Jiraiya stood in his own funeral garb just leaning against a pillar and watching the scene.

When Naruto and Janine had returned from Saffron City the first thing he had been prepared to do was to lay into his student for being reckless, the way he had originally planned to. But seeing that he'd actually won had taken some of the vitriol out of him, and finding that Janine had put an end to Koga took away the rest of it.

He didn't even want to be the disciplinarian to begin with. To be perfectly frank, Jiraiya was honestly very proud of what Naruto had done. He'd solved his own problem. Gone in and finished what he'd started on his own terms. It was a commendable trait of a shinobi to be able to find a way to see the job through and get it done in the end, something that would take him far later on when the time came.

The entire Team Rocket experience in of itself taught him a lesson. It taught him several lessons actually, and even with the difficulties it came with Jiraiya was still glad that they had come there. Now that it was all out of the way and they'd both gotten a bit acquainted with the multiple facets of Kanto he could begin putting Naruto to the grindstone, just as soon as he could come up with a good open place to work some skill into him.

Naruto had even accomplished Jiraiya's mission that he'd given him for training on the noncombat related aspects of ninja life; establishing contacts.

Naruto would always refer to it as Jiraiya's excuse to ditch him again, but the fact of the matter was that he'd made several useful and powerful allies all around Kanto ranging from tough Pokémon Trainers, to great scientific minds, to Gym Leaders that owed him favors, and more. Janine was the one he'd taken a shine to the most, just like he'd expected. As he'd said before, you didn't travel with someone for that long if you didn't need to if there wasn't something about them that you liked.

Even so, it did make him kind of sad that he'd wind up pulling those two out there apart. She had been good for Naruto for the most part, and Aya felt that he had been good for Janine in return. All of the crap they'd been through clearly had them take some kind of a shine to each other.

He could feel Aya standing nearby and watching them from behind his location. Oh Kami, she thought this whole thing was cute. He had the feeling that if he broke this up anytime soon the girl's aunt might try to kill him. So that would probably make leaving more than a little difficult, because they really had to get going.

"You can definitely be a good Gym Leader!" Both of them heard Naruto say from where he and Janine had been sitting, "You've got your aunt and Erika to help you if you need it. You've got me too, for what that's worth. I don't really know how you'll find me when me and Ero-sennin leave to get back on with my training, but you know…"

A tap came on Jiraiya's shoulder that got him to cringe when he knew full well that it was Aya, and he was already mentally preparing his long series of explanations as to why he and Naruto had to move a ways away from Fuchsia City in order for him to do what they needed to do to the best of their ability.

He could almost physically feel the smile on her face as she prepared to try and appeal to him, "I believe I have a solution to your earlier problem if you don't mind me offering." Aya said, and it was just very similar to what he'd expected, "The one where you would need a safe place to train your student Naruto."

"Can't do it here." Jiraiya said quickly, gesturing to the very nice mansion grounds around them, "I appreciate it, but this place isn't right for what I need. I can't let the kid get any distractions. I've got to put his shoulder to the plow and do some pretty dangerous work with him."

A tight grip of a hand set itself on his shoulder and Jiraiya tensed up. Did he piss her off by alluding that he didn't care about splitting them up? Oh Kami, he was going to have to cut and run with Naruto to avoid getting passive-aggressively picked at until they left if he had.

"I wasn't going to suggest here." Aya said with a smile too sweet to be trusted to turn his back on, "There's a perfectly vast place, very rugged and dangerous, not too far from here. It's meant only as a controlled environment for rarer breeds of Pokémon to live freely. People aren't allowed there normally, but since we have our Gym Leader here now we can make some arrangements if you find it to your liking."

That actually was interesting. He needed a place to hunker down for a bit that could probably take a bit of a beating while he put Naruto through his paces, and this place could possibly be it.

"…Alright, let's talk about it."

XxX

(The Next Day)

It was pretty hard when the next morning rolled around for Janine to watch Naruto and Jiraiya fly away on Kamisori. At this point she'd been so used to going with them, or Naruto at least, everywhere they went that it felt strange to see them off instead of coming along.

Naruto and Jiraiya were to head back to Pallet Town, half to check in on everyone that had been freed from being held in Saffron City, half to talk to a man that had his ear to the ground in most of the country in Professor Oak to figure out if the Team Rocket problem had been fully resolved.

All she could do was wave at their departure with a wistful sigh. She really wanted to go. But then again she was the Gym Leader now. Everything that had happened led to this. Those had been the greatest few months of her life, "…I've never had as much fun as I did with you Babyface."

She was going to miss travelling with that crabby yellow-haired jerk. It was quite the experience to say the least.

Her aunt Aya set a hand on her shoulder with a knowing expression that Janine didn't even need to look over to know about. She could just feel it without having to, "If you're going to stare at them like that you probably should have kissed him before he left."

And now she just felt awkward.

Janine's face twisted up before her expression turned deadpan and blank, "Never gonna happen."

"Are you sure?" Aya asked, raising an eyebrow at her young niece, "I think it would have been adorable."

"Absolutely not. And just what would be adorable about it?"

"Bet you you'll think about him tonight."

"Gross! I don't want to talk about that with you! And no!"

"I am an adult and your aunt. And you're a Gym Leader now so it's fine. Also… from that reaction I'd say that you probably-."

"Shut up!"

Older woman or not, Janine was already proven to be stronger than her, so pushing the buttons of the possibly volatile and grieving girl too much probably wouldn't end well. Still, she was going to have her fun, "…I wonder if he'll think about you toni-."

"Oh my God!" Janine finally had enough and walked away, throwing her hands up in exasperation, "I've got… Pokémon Gym stuff to do!"

XxX

(With Naruto and Jiraiya)

Both of the Konoha-borne shinobi were pretty quiet as they flew over Fuchsia City on the way out to Pallet Town until Jiraiya sucked at his teeth from where he was sitting as he allowed Naruto to guide Kamisori through the sky.

"So…" Jiraiya started to say, "…Any particular reason you didn't close that little deal with your girlie back there when you had the chance kid? She probably would have let you kiss her goodbye you know."

Naruto already knew what Jiraiya was talking about since his usually on-the-fritz mood-reader told him that if he was ever going to get away with hugging a girl… or more… back then would have been the time for it. And he didn't do anything other than say goodbye.

Basically, he'd missed his shot to finally take advantage of being close to a girl that maybe, possibly, somehow, perhaps might have liked him for once. It was his fault, and he'd dropped the ball on that one. Even to try and see if she did. He knew this.

Jiraiya sadly gave Naruto a few pats on the shoulder, "You've got to stop blowing chances like that. It doesn't really reflect well on me as a ladies' man if you can't even net yourself a girl." What else were foreign excursions like this for other than some consequence-free hook-ups? It was one reason Jiraiya liked travelling so much.

Yes, Naruto realized without needing to be told that he blew a chance. Even so, he didn't need Jiraiya's ass bringing it up like he was doing color commentary on his life.

"Kamisori do a barrel roll."

And Naruto's Aerodactyl obediently spun once in the air quickly, which would have dumped Jiraiya off of him had the wily old toad sage not managed to stick a hand to his back before he fell too far off.

Jiraiya let out a surprised yell, but stayed on and righted himself once the flight stabilized. Since Naruto was the only reason they were flying and if he were alone on the Aerodactyl's back it would drop him and then try to eat him, he couldn't shove the ungrateful runt off to show him what was what.

"I'm gonna kick your ass for that when we land." Jiraiya said with a glare leveled at his student's back, "Hard." Just because Naruto didn't sack up and make a move in _three months_ of travelling alone with that girl didn't mean he could vent on him when he helpfully brought it all up for his benefit.

XxX

(Sometime Later – Pallet Town – Professor Oak's Laboratory)

Despite the every citizen in the little town being captured by the most powerful criminal organization in the region, apparently they all took that sort of thing in stride because no one seemed to suffer any longstanding detrimental effects from being held prisoner for however long they had been captured for.

Man those were some resilient folks.

Upon arrival, Naruto had his Pokédex checked by the good professor that ran it who had determined that Naruto had captured 17 Pokémon aside from the six that he usually kept on him and their evolutionary forms, and he had seen 69 of them in his Kanto travels. A good number for a quarter of the year spent journeying.

It was a nice reunion of sorts, at first anyway.

Sitting up in the observatory area of Professor Oak's windmill of a lab, Naruto's face was quite heavily bruised up… as was the body of his nearby Hitmonlee that had done his best to level the playing field in Naruto's 'spar' with Jiraiya. Apparently almost getting his arm blown off by Naruto's fiery Rasengan courtesy of an assist from Ranbouen got Jiraiya to take his matches with Naruto far more seriously.

Which resulted in him getting booted around like a rookie.

Fortunately though, his anguish didn't last too terribly long, as Jiraiya apparently had business to attend to with the good professor, leaving Naruto alone to heal. Well, not quite alone, as he did have some measure of company outside of his Pokémon while Jiraiya did his own thing.

"What a well-mannered Hitmonlee." Naruto's company was a rather pretty girl a few years older than him wearing a lab coat over a sweater that looked much like Blue's. Also like Blue she had an amulet hanging from around her neck just like his. She even shared the same hair color, but hers was longer with a bang parting it from falling into her face.

Daisy Oak was also much more amiable than Blue happened to be, so that was good.

And for some reason Fukigenko was ultra-mellow around her. After getting beaten up by Jiraiya he should have been puttering about, kicking at the air and muttering to himself grumpily, but apparently the moment Daisy put her hands on him he just sat down with his legs crossed and chilled out.

"He really isn't." Naruto said, staring deadpan at his jerk of a fighting Pokémon, "He's kind of a prick. Even when he was a Tyrogue he was. But he's still mine." What the hell was she doing to calm him down so much? If he wasn't fighting when he was outside of his Poke Ball, he was throwing kicks at random objects for fun.

"I'm so glad my brother actually made friends while he was out on his journey." Daisy said while continuing to massage Fukigenko into a Pokémon puddle of goo, "He's not feeling too well right now, but you probably know why better than I do."

Yeah, getting busted through an entire building by a Moltres would do that to you. Naruto tried to visit him already upon arriving in Pallet Town, him and Red, but Red hadn't returned to his home yet and Blue basically told him to leave so he could rest and get better. He didn't even want to battle or anything.

In his defense, only Naruto would be able to heal from all of the injuries he suffered during the final battle in Saffron City with just a week to do it.

"I didn't see you around here when I was here the first time." Naruto said brightly, "I went all over the place and never met you before."

Daisy just waved it off before the lack of one hand to her massage to Fukigenko got him to grunt in disapproval, "Oh, I was in Johto for a while, running an errand for grandfather. But when I came back I wasn't here for long before the Team Rocket thing happened."

A prideful blond puffed his chest out proudly at having a very significant hand in dealing with that situation. She had permission to thank him… now. But she didn't. Probably because she didn't even see him after being freed, what with the consoling Janine after she'd killed Koga, and the smattering of Pallet Town citizens that needed to somehow manage to travel their way back home.

All of those little trifling matters.

With a sigh, Naruto opened his orange windbreaker top and plucked his seven badges out of the inseam, "These are supposed to be uh, magic or something aren't they? How the hell do they work?"

Professor Oak's eldest grandchild just giggled at him and looked over at them, "Just having them enhances the battle properties of your Pokémon in different ways. I'm pretty sure there was a study on it at some point. If you'd like I can try to pull up the research files on it for you?"

Ugh, no thanks. He'd run his eyes over some of the paperwork that Oak called his research. If reading on the research on the properties of Gym Badges was anything like that he wouldn't be able to pay attention long enough to get the gist of it, "Eh, don't worry about it."

Daisy just shrugged before taking note that he had seven of them, "Hey, you're missing one." She pointed out, "Viridian City's badge."

"I tried to battle at that Gym first, but it was closed or something." Naruto recalled during his earliest days in Kanto back when Ranbouen was a Growlithe and Hogohei was a Shellder, "So I just went on ahead."

"Well we came back through Viridian on the way home, and it seems to be open now. Why don't you challenge for it?"

That was… actually a really good idea. There wasn't any reason to _not_ do it. At this point he had seven out of the available eight; the Boulder, Cascade, Thunder, Rainbow, Volcano, Marsh, and Soul Badges. He'd nearly gotten himself killed in four of the scenarios that wound up with him netting them, so why not finish the damn set? Hell yeah, it sounded like a plan to him!

Naruto looked over at Fukigenko who made eye contact with him, apparently thinking about the same thing, only more centered on actually getting to fight again, "…'monlee."

He'd take that as a confirmation that it was a good idea.

Holding up his Poke Ball, Naruto returned Fukigenko to the ball before reattaching his Badges, grinning all the while, "Alright then, let's go make some noise." With that, he went to the window and stood on the sill, wondering if he was about to look as cool as he thought he was going to.

Daisy got up in concern. The lab was a windmill, and the level that they were on, the observatory, was very high off of the ground. Standing on that windowsill was extremely dangerous, "What are you doing?" All Naruto did was wave before falling back out of the window. Daisy scrambled to the window in time to see an Aerodactyl ascend with Naruto riding on its back, "That wasn't funny." She said as Kamisori flapped his wings and kept Naruto level with the window.

"It was supposed to be cool."

"It wasn't that cool either. It was reckless."

"…Well I thought it was."

"…Alright it was sort of cool."

XxX

(Professor Oak's Ranch)

"No luck?" Jiraiya asked as he casually followed Oak around the premises while he saw to the Pokémon under his care, "I mean, I know the Team Rocket abducting you thing kind of had to cut into any free time you would have had to look in on what I asked for-." Jiraiya said, grinning cheekily and bringing up that his student had helped to save his ass, "-But even so."

Professor Oak smiled wryly in return at Jiraiya's apparent sense of humor and decided to indulge the man, "Oh yes, I was able to do all sorts of research in helping you find Mew from the supply basement of Silph Co." He said before holding up a blank hand and making a page-turning gesture with the other, "Just look at all of these notes I've meticulously acquired for you. All on Mew."

Smartass and sarcasm was a universal language and the two fifty-plus year old men were masters of the old tongue.

"Alright, alright." Jiraiya relented with a chuckle. Seriously, he liked the old professor. He saw a lot of himself in him. Both of them were well-respected elder statesmen of their respective fields. It was just that he was cooler and the ladies loved him more, and there was nothing wrong with that, "It's just that reverse summoning would make it a lot easier to take Naruto home when the time came."

He really wanted to find the thing prohibiting him from summoning while in the area of influence of the continent. Access to toads probably would have been able to stop some of the bad things he'd seen in Kanto from happening. The volcano on Cinnabar Island that erupted and destroyed the place… something probably could have been done about that had he had access to summoning a boss-level toad or two.

And Sage Mode would have made dealing with those legendary birds much easier, even if he still wasn't able to fly to combat them. Fukasaku and Shima were going to hit him again when he checked back in with them, he just knew it.

"That one Pokémon can't possibly have the power to completely block summoning." Jiraiya said to himself, "Summoning is supposed to be a technique that transcends space and time."

Space and time?

Professor Oak almost stiffened at that bit of repeated information. It had rang hollow the first time he'd heard it since he felt that Jiraiya not telling Naruto of his parentage was more important than a problem was wasn't very vital, but now it hit loud and clear.

Something may have slipped my mind in the past when we spoke about this last." Oak said, stroking his chin in thought, "Even if you were to find Mew, its behavior patterns in lore don't lead it to doing such things other than in order to protect itself. If you want to find a legendary Pokémon more known for space and time, Johto's traditions have a Pokémon in their region that is said to carry the ability to easily make time and space its plaything."

Another region? So the whole place was bigger than just Kanto?

Jiraiya had obviously figured as much about there being more than what he was seeing already, but hearing about it still piqued his wanderer's interest in wanting to see just what else was out there as long as they still had plenty of time before they needed to return to the Elemental Nations.

The fact that he could continue trying to follow up on the mystery of just what was blocking all space-time jutsu from taking effect farther away than the limits of the Pokémon Continent was just the original reason he was intrigued.

"So do you know what the deal is with this Pokémon you're talking about?"

"I have a colleague in Johto that is an expert on the abilities of unusual Pokémon. He'll know more than me."

"Meh… can I at least get the name of it or something?" Jiraiya groused, "I can't really go on some journey to another region right now. I've got plans to train the brat for a while directly now that he's shown me some real grit. We can't just cut and run on a possible wild goose chase to some new place."

"Of course." Oak said before something in the air caught his attention, "Isn't that the 'brat' that you're talking about, flying away?"

Indeed, it was impossible to mistake that orange clothing for someone else's sitting on top of Kamisori's back, "Hey Ero-sennin!" The loud, boisterous voice either, "While you do… whatever you're doing I'm gonna go get my last Kanto Gym Battle in and see if I can win! Later!"

No way, he was going to ditch him again? Son of a bitch, that really _was_ annoying! Jiraiya could now see Naruto's point about when he did that to him the last dozen times or so in the past. It had only been done to him twice since they'd been in Kanto and he was quickly realizing that it sucked to be left like that.

"Get your narrow ass back here!" Jiraiya shouted at him, trying to chase him down on foot before he flew faster than Jiraiya could keep pace with over a long distance, "Where the hell is he going?"

"The Viridian City Gym was closed until recently." Professor Oak pointed out, deadpanning at the on-the-surface disrespectful byplay of the two ninjas, but he knew that if things really were that way they wouldn't spend as much time as they did around each other, "I sent him that way when he first arrived here, but I don't think he ever battled that Gym Leader for his Earth Badge. I'd think he'd head there."

Then that was where Jiraiya was going to. Not only to bust Naruto in the head for leaving him behind of all people, but because he wanted to see one of these Pokémon battles without things being under life and death circumstances for once, "How long should it take me to get there?"

"Normally on foot it would take several hours, but I believe Naruto made it there on foot in three hours time." So on an Aerodactyl he'd probably make it there in a matter of minutes.

Well Jiraiya could shave around half of that time off if he really decided to make tracks on the way up there. Could somebody say daytrip?

XxX

(Sometime Later – Viridian City Pokémon Gym)

It had been a while since Naruto had taken any sort of sanctioned Gym Leader Challenge. The last one he'd had was against Erika, and ever since then every battle he'd fought had been for life and limb. Hopefully he could readjust to an exhibition style of battling now that he didn't have to protect his own life or the lives of the people around him.

He still had jitters. Even if it didn't mean anything to his ninja career, he'd feel an immense sense of pride out of closing out the challenge and taking the last prize he needed to complete the set. Even if he'd obtained some of them by means other than Gym Battles, it didn't mean that he still didn't work hard for them.

He'd been rushing so fast the first time that he really hadn't taken the time to get a look at Viridian City, but now that he was able to view it from the air it was a pretty big town. It was a charming piece of suburbia in most places of it, but it was clearly a larger city than many of the others he'd been to in the region.

But sightseeing had to come to a swift end once he landed at the front door of the Viridian City Gym. It still looked just as regal and as well-kept as ever.

Returning Kamisori to his Poke Ball, Naruto tried to keep a straight and serious face, but he couldn't stop the grin from spreading forth on his face as the closed sign was no longer on the door. With gusto he threw the doors open and stepped inside, ready for action.

The place was no-frills and no-nonsense in its décor. There were pillars that lined the side walls and a field made of dirt right in the middle with an open way to a chamber that led to the back of the Gym. The lights inside were low, but it was bright enough inside to see.

"Okay. Definitely the eeriest Pokémon Gym I've been in so far." Naruto commented to himself, shivering at a chill that went down his spine. What kind of Gym was this supposed to be themed as anyway?

All of the others were based on some sort of type or another be it water, rock, poison, fire, etc.

With that in mind, what kind of fight could he expect here?

"I'm so pleased to finally see you in person Uzumaki Naruto." A voice echoed out from the corridor leading to the back of the Gym, "I've been hearing about the things you and your friends have done for quite some time. I didn't think when I first saw you that you would be such trouble. To think, you would be one of the main catalysts that broke my Kanto operations."

Naruto squinted but couldn't see into the shadows of the corridor even as the slouched figure walked his way into the main battle room, "What are you talking about?"

"Team Rocket. You've done a fine job doing your best to throw a monkey wrench into my carefully set up system. The underground base in Celadon was where our Pokémon were altered and experimented on. Saffron was where they were sent to gain the bulk of their experience under Rocket command. Vermillion was the central hub for moving our interests all over the region wherever we needed them to go. All of these things can be restored, but the fact that a bunch of children ruined them in the first place…"

Immediately, Naruto went on the defensive, "…Who are you? We already beat all of the leaders! Lt. Surge is dead, Koga is dead, and Sabrina's disappeared somewhere! What is this?"

"Yes my Triad. My generals. But they weren't me." A smartly dressed man in a black suit and a cream-colored turtleneck underneath the jacket stepped into sight with a smirk and his hands held behind his back, "I'm the man that runs it all. The Boss of Team Rocket. You may call me Giovanni."

"I know you…" Naruto said. This was the man that he had run into coming out of the Gym when he'd first come to Viridian City to begin with, "Why didn't you battle me back then if you were the Gym Leader then too? Why now?"

"Because battles in the Gym are completely worthless." Giovanni said, "I tired long ago of being a mere Gym Leader. What's the point of it? What is it really giving me? It's nothing compared to taking the world… and everything in it. Your father Minato showed me that being a powerful trainer by itself means nothing. He's the reason I created Team Rocket."

What? Naruto was still reeling with his mind moving a mile a minute about this man being the mastermind of Team Rocket, and now he was saying that he knew Minato? And why the hell did everyone seem to know that he was Minato's kid when he didn't even know of the relation himself?

But what did Minato show him that made him believe that creating a criminal empire was a good idea?

"Your father was an incredible man." Giovanni stated with a wide, sweeping gesture of his arms before pointing Naruto's way, "You look just like him. It's uncanny. But before his departure from our lands to return to his I bore witness to feat after feat, things I thought were impossible by human limitations, but he would simply knock everything I perceived humankind as capable of out of the water."

Yeah, that sounded like a reaction to seeing some of the things that Namikaze Minato was capable of. His dad was a badass, this he knew.

"From him I learned that it took more than just powerful Pokémon to be the strongest trainer. The human in control had to be fast, strong, and just as strong of will to ensure that they would be invincible." Giovanni said with a nostalgic look as if he could see Minato in action at that very moment, "I found the best examples of that in all of Kanto to head up my Team Rocket."

Lt. Surge. As well as being a master of electric Pokemon he was the most physically powerful, fit, and toughest man in Kanto, able to easily move entire motor vehicles with his physical strength and endure attacks that would easily mortally injure a normal human being.

Sabrina. The premier psychic Pokémon-user on the entire continent. The gifted young woman had her own ever-improving psychic abilities that could already allow her to defeat even a high-level, well-trained Pokémon all on her own without any Pokémon partnership or assistance. As Naruto already knew from personal experience, she was one of the scariest people around.

Koga. The poisonous ninja-master of Fuchsia City. Advanced strategic use of his Pokémon, along with the speed that he had developed far past inhuman levels made him a threat all on his own with the method that he used to battle, using one or two Pokémon traditionally, but using one or more on his own person to further enhance his skills. It was truly a great loss to the organization when he died.

They did more than just bark out orders at their Pokémon and send them off to fight for them alone. They were capable of battling effectively alongside their Pokémon and overpowering the creatures with their own merits and abilities on their own. Each one of them could defeat any half-cocked trainer and their Pokémon by the dozens.

But this man… what in the world could he possibly do?

Naruto didn't plan on finding out.

He didn't give two shits about a Gym Badge now. This was the last man standing for Team Rocket. If it was Orochimaru… if it was Akatsuki… he wouldn't give them a fighting chance if he could help it, and he wasn't going to do the same here. This was practice for that.

Call it live-action trial by fire.

So fast that Giovanni couldn't tell he'd made a hand-seal, Naruto created a Kage Bunshin and charged him down while forming a Rasengan quickly between the two of them while Giovanni's hands were still behind his back, "This ends today! Once and for all! Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

"Too slow baby boy." With a snap of his fingers a massive rolling figure barreled from the back and Giovanni seemed to vanish out of its way to reveal it to Naruto and his clone who stopped assisting with the Rasengan and shoved him out of the way, getting crushed like an insect for saving its creator, "A direct charge… is never going to work on me. You're not even close to being as fast as your father. You're not even as fast as Koga."

After being moved out of the way of the locomotive that had almost killed him, Naruto got a good look at it.

A Golem. That craggy boulder of a shell and otherwise turtle-ish appearance was unmistakable.

Naruto got himself up off of the ground and wiped at his cheek with a fist, "Slow… well what does that make you?" There's no way this man was quicker than him. That was just impossible. But he called him slow, "I'll show you who's slow."

"It's not that you're slow." Giovanni corrected with a wag of his finger, "It's just that you're not fast enough to fool my eyes. Compared to Koga, and especially your father, you might as well have been jogging towards me with that attack of yours. Tackle!"

Golem hurled its entire body right at Naruto who was easily nimble enough to avoid it as he reached for a Poke Ball to even up the odds, 'Fuki will tenderize that bastard with his kicks.'

"Tail Whip."

From the shadows of the room, in the direction that Naruto was moving in, a bulky stone tail lashed out and swatted him away and down just as he grabbed for Fukigenko's Poke Ball. He was knocked to the ground, but it still wound up releasing his Hitmonlee from his ball, "Fuki… Double Kick."

Both Golem and a Rhyhorn moved in to crush Naruto, but Fukigenko jumped up and lashed out with his springy, stretchy legs in both directions of the attacking Pokémon, stopping them from harming his trainer and kicking them both away safely.

"Impressive." Giovanni commented, clapping at seeing Fukigenko so skillfully pull such a thing off, "That Hitmonlee seems quite accustomed to fighting multiple opponents at once."

Naruto got back up off of the ground and stood to battle alongside his fighting Pokémon, "Fukigenko trains with me every single day, otherwise he gets pissier than usual. And I fight him with clones all the time."

"Wonderful!" Giovanni said with a grand clap of his hands, seemingly pleased at what he was hearing, "While you may lack many of the things your father had, you have your own skills that make you an extraordinary person in your own right. I want to extend to you an offer that I wish I could have given Minato years ago. Join me. You have boundless potential to do great things."

"What do you mean you wish you could've asked dad?"

"As awe-inspiring as he was, your father was something of an idealist. He would never have agreed with what I've done, what I will do, to get everything coming to me."

"Everything coming to you?"

"This world Naruto, and everything I want in it."

Naruto made a step toward Giovanni, but his Rhyhorn and Golem moved in front to run interference before Naruto could get a step on attacking him. Naruto quickly reached into his supply pouch and dropped a Poke Ball right behind himself. As Golem and Rhyhorn charged forward with surprising speed to preempt him and deal damage before his next Pokémon evened the odds, Naruto jumped into the air back over the white light that signified a second Pokémon of his joining the fray, "Fuki, Rolling Kick! Hogohei, Aurora Beam!"

Naruto's Cloyster was his next Pokémon of choice, and in a very unprecedented move, Fukigenko round-kicked Hogohei at an angle that caused him to spin uncontrollably while he was firing his multicolored beam of destruction from his lead horn, sending it blasting all over the Gym.

That easily deterred Giovanni's Pokémon from moving forward to attack and his Rhyhorn took a direct hit that blew it back at his feet. The interest shining in Giovanni's eyes was clear and present just from that move alone.

Hogohei's Aurora Beam ended with several of the large pillars to the gym on the side walls being destroyed. The dust from the pummeled infrastructure billowing around the battlefield freely and all Naruto could really make out was the leader of Team Rocket's smirk at him and the visage of Golem, until that too vanished from view.

Naruto suspiciously began looking around, but before he could locate the enemy Pokémon Hogohei was smashed into hard by a gigantic boulder of a creature, "Hey!" He then had to hit the deck himself to avoid getting the top half of his body removed by the same sort of attack, "What the hell? Fuki, Foresight! Hogohei, Protect!"

Fukigenko moved near Hogohei and began focusing on everything going on around him, blocking out all other thoughts except for the sound of Golem's body crashing into the walls and floor. The next time Golem's body came flying through the dust at the party, a barrier covered Fukigenko and Hogohei, neutralizing whatever crushing force was going to hit them.

"Hi Jump Kick!"

The second the barrier dropped, Golem was still hanging in the air where it had clashed against it, and Fukigenko jumped directly at it, blasting it with a harsh kick strong enough to carry them both to the ceiling and smash a hole into it.

The hole in the ceiling began allowing the dust to settle easier and upon being forced to look up Giovanni saw that Naruto was flying in the air on Kamisori. For some reason this amused him to the extent of laughter, "An Aerodactyl? You got that restored from the laboratory in Cinnabar before it was all destroyed didn't you?" He asked, "And where, pray tell, did you get the fossil for it?"

"Janine." Naruto said, trying to locate his Rhyhorn somewhere in the dust while it was still covering the ground thoroughly, "Not that it's any of your business."

"But it is my business. Who do you think hired her for the mission to steal the fossils from the museum in Pewter?" He asked rhetorically, "Me. I hired her at her father's behest without letting her know who I was, just an avid collector. If she had succeeded she would have procured a grand source of powerful Pokémon for us to restore, and we probably would have been able to get her to join Team Rocket. Fate is funny though isn't it?"

So Kamisori and a mess of other prehistoric Pokémon would have wound up in Team Rocket's possession, "You wouldn't even know what to do with something as awesome as Kamisori." Naruto taunted from the air in the Gym.

"I know exactly what I'd do with him." Giovanni said, "Tell me, when you went through Viridian Forest the first time was it a little… dangerous?"

Hell the fuck yes it was dangerous. For one thing there were far too many Beedrill there that first time for it to be deemed safe for people to travel through. If Ranbouen hadn't been a fire Pokémon then he, the puppy, and Hogohei probably would have been killed in there at some point or another.

As a matter of fact, there were things in there a smidge stronger than he'd expected. It stopped being a parade of beating up Caterpie and Weedle and steadily turned into one hell of a survival training session the farther toward the center he ventured.

"…Why?"

"What better place to leave Pokémon that I intend to use for my grander schemes of take-over? A place so vast that they can be left until I need them. A place where they can be left to be wild and grow savage and stronger on their own, even more than they already were? What better place to force previously owned Pokémon to shed their wills to be tamed and under their trainer's thumb? Every army needs soldiers Naruto."

He was keeping the Pokémon he managed to get under his influence in Viridian Forest. And with the Gym Leader missing for all of this time, there was really no reason for anyone to even come to this side of the region. Pallet Town and Viridian City had nothing else of real interest in them worth traveling for other than the Gym, which was why the entire town of Pallet could be kidnapped and no one raised a finger. Because no one knew.

"This city is my last bastion Naruto." Giovanni admitted freely, gesturing to the Gym around him, "This is my sanctuary. My Triad is broken. My underlings are scrambled and haven't regrouped yet. I haven't even summoned them here or let them know where I am. So what are you going to do? Can you finish it? If you can't… all of it will be rebuilt. I can guarantee you that."

And why wouldn't he? He had already proven that taking over Kanto was entirely possible for him. He had almost accomplished it with everything that had occurred by this point before it all fell apart at its apex. If Giovanni himself still couldn't be defeated, he was entirely within his limits to go back to the drawing board and try it all again. Not trying again after coming so close to getting it all would be foolish.

He'd be even more dangerous next time. Team Rocket would be even stronger. Their mastermind would know what they did that worked, and what they did that was unnecessary and had failed for them.

While it was true that everyone deserved a second chance, was this really a situation where Naruto could allow one?

Giovanni was basically daring him. Saying to stop him at all costs, because if he didn't… all of this was going to happen again until someone strong enough did or until he succeeded.

"Stop me if you can." Giovanni said, holding up another Poke Ball in his hand, "I won't hold back. I won't underestimate you. You're too dangerous. You and Koga's daughter, and those trainers from Pallet Town. You all have to fall, and I have to start with you. Prepare to die."

Naruto gathered chakra and sent out his hands to force chains to form out of nothing to fly at Giovanni.

The man dove in a safety roll and got back to his feet in the same motion as Naruto's chains spiked into the floor of the Gym. As he lifted his Poke Ball hand, Naruto grinned victoriously when his chain latched solidly around his forearm.

"Gotcha!" Naruto shouted, getting up on Kamisori's back to try and reel him in like a fish. Giovanni fought it tooth and nail, actually impressing Naruto by curtailing the pull to getting his feet dragged slowly across the ground. He was strong if Naruto couldn't outright reel him in and could only settle for winning a tug-of-war of sorts, but trapped was trapped.

End the battle by defeating the commander. It was classic tactics, "Fuki, kick his lights out! Blaze Kick!"

Fukigenko's legs caught fire as he leapt right at Giovanni to blast him with a kick that would more than likely maim or kill him, but he didn't seem concerned. A shift of his hand revealed that he Poke Ball in his captured arm had already been opened.

When? During the roll!

"Dugtrio, Dig!"

Underneath Fukigenko's feet, a trio of brown heads burst from the floor and knocked him into the air. Giovanni called out a damn Dugtrio? To hell with that. Even if he'd stopped Fukigenko for the time being there was still a Pokémon right underneath him with one hell of a ranged attack at his beck and call, "Kamisori, Hyper Beam!"

Wasting no breaths, Kamisori opened up his serrated toothed mouth with a yellow beam charging inside of it, set to fire right at Giovanni who by all accounts looked to be defenseless and stuck in place by Naruto's Chakra Chain gambit.

"Rhyhorn, Rock Slide!"

Oh no. That thing. It had been skulking around in the dust for a while. But how was an attack like that necessarily supposed to work indoors with no rocks?

Giovanni's Rhyhorn butted itself into the wall as hard as it could and crumbled away part of the wall and ceiling to fall down on Naruto and Kamisori, grounding the Aerodactyl and knocking Naruto off of his back while an uncontrollable Hyper Beam blasted at the floors, walls, pillars, and ceilings recklessly, carving a trench through all of it until it ceased. Giovanni showed that his suit belied a very powerful frame as he yanked hard on the chain that Naruto attached himself to him with, pulling Naruto down to the floor extra-hard to add to the fall.

Naruto's chest and chin were smarting harshly after his fall off of his aerial ride, and a shadow loomed over him in the form of Giovanni's Rhyhorn with its foot raised to crash down on him in a Stomp attack, "Surf!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs while he covered up to anticipate getting his entire body smashed.

Hogohei did not disappoint, as water crashed straight through the doors of the Gym, seemingly out of nowhere taking the bulky Cloyster at its head to cascade into Rhyhorn to keep it from harming Naruto.

Naruto was thoroughly drenched and his back was eventually smashed off of the wall, but that was a welcome substitute for what had been about to happen moments prior. Coughing the water out of his lungs, he turned to his right and saw that Giovanni's Rhyhorn had been put down by Hogohei's timely attack.

If a gigantic shelled Pokémon could feel pats of thanks, that was what Hogohei happened to be receiving at that moment from a relieved Naruto as Fukigenko walked over, wiping water off of his own body, "…Where's Giovanni?"

Eyes scanning the dimly lit Gym, Naruto eventually honed in on a hole in the ground, one that was probably created by Giovanni's Dugtrio. His eyes widened and a curse that was set to come out never came to fruition as the entire Gym began shaking to its very foundations. It had already been heavily damaged by Hogohei's errant Aurora Beam and the neverending cannonball-esque bouncing attack of Giovanni's Golem that Fukigenko kicked clear out of the building. That was all before Kamisori's Hyper Beam tore into it.

Even with the inner fortifications of a Pokémon Gym, that was too much for any building to be expected to take and then proceed to endure an Earthquake attack.

As it was now, it was not going to be able to stand up to that abuse, and it began falling apart on itself with everyone that was still inside nowhere near the front door needed to escape.

On the outside at a decent distance heading into the Viridian Forest, Giovanni bore witness to his most recent Pokémon's assault on his former Pokémon Gym. He held not a touch of remorse for the sight of the place that he was meant to proudly represent as a Gym Leader crumbling to the ground. It was just a building, and being a Gym Leader to him was just a title that opened doors to get him what he wanted.

At one time it might have been the proudest achievement of his life, but those days were long over. He had given up everything that a normal person could find happiness from, all in order to reach the pinnacle of what he was capable of.

Family? None. He'd cast that away years ago for chasing power.

All he had was Team Rocket and all that came with it.

"You couldn't ever have stopped me." Giovanni said, slowly walking out from the treeline to check the premises and make sure Naruto was beaten and dead, "I truly could have made you a partner. Your potential… it was incredible." At his side he was flanked by a large, spike-covered, purple bipedal creature with a tough hide, a large tail, and a massive horn on its forehead and another that was light blue-green in color with a somewhat different appearance.

As he and his Pokémon walked amongst the rubble that used to be called his Gym, he became more and more suspicious. He wasn't seeing any bodies. He saw nothing there. None of Naruto's Pokémon or Naruto himself. Not even the Rhyhorn that Naruto had defeated prior to Giovanni's leaving the Gym.

No.

That wasn't the end of it.

"ExtremeSpeed!"

From behind, the large purple creature was plowed into by an orange and black blur that sent it careening away into a vast pile of rubble. The hit was so fast, and occurred without warning, marking it as a critical strike that never gave the imposing Pokémon a chance to get out of the blocks to fight.

That was clearly Naruto's most powerful Pokémon.

"An Arcanine." Giovanni said, noting Naruto on the powerful dog-being's back. Naruto looked all kinds of torn up. Apparently he didn't escape the collapse of the Gym unscathed. The short-sleeve of his left arm was entirely torn off, leaving the limb very bloody and limp. Blood trailed down his face, and his zipper and top of his shirt was torn askew somewhat, "How did you survive?"

"Ranbouen learned Dig a long time ago." Naruto said, eyes flashing red.

Just because Ranbouen wasn't hurt didn't mean that his other Pokémon weren't. Kamisori had been incapacitated by Rhyhorn earlier. Hogohei had been rattled even before the Earthquake and that had just been the final straw for him. Fukigenko injured a leg and wouldn't be any more good in battle until he was given time to heal. He had to remain behind in the fray long enough to return them all to Poke Balls before escaping, and his left arm exhibited just what risk that ran.

One Earthquake did that to them.

Spitting blood onto the ground, Naruto sneered Giovanni's way. The man's own arm was badly cut up from however he freed himself from the tightly-wrapped grip of Naruto's Chakra Chain. He had cast his suit jacket aside, leaving him in his cream-colored turtleneck and vest. His own blood stained the ground as well as his dark pants and light shirt.

"Join me." Giovanni said, "I can give you anything you want. Once we take it you can have it. You'll never want for anything. You can continue to grow and be the best. I'll lend you Team Rocket's strength after we take control of this continent… after we get all of the most powerful legendary Pokémon that exist under our control… and you can take the Elemental Nations to rule as yours."

"What I want, you can't give me." Naruto said resolutely as he rubbed the top of Ranbouen's head with his good arm.

"And what is it that you want? You can have all of the money you could ever ask for. Any Pokémon you wish for, we can find and obtain. People will bow down to you because of your strength that won't ever stop growing. You can have access to any resource our lands have to offer." Giovanni presented, pitching forth the deal, "Is it something immaterial like love that you want? Koga's daughter? I won't have any need to harm her with you on my side, I swear it."

"That's not it. I want the respect of my village. So that they'll recognize me as the strongest and make me the Hokage."

"Respect? When you take the continent how will they not respect you and recognize you the way you wish?"

"No, that's fear, not respect. It's not the same." Terrorizing his home with Zapdos, Articuno, Moltres, the Mewtwo Pokémon he'd heard of, and whatever other horrendously powerful Pokémon existed… that wasn't what he wanted, "I'm not letting this happen to Konoha, no matter what you say I'll get out of it! I don't want it!"

"Then there really is nothing left to say."

"I guess not."

Giovanni opened his mouth to issue a command, but Naruto beat him to the punch, "ExtremeSpeed!" With a low booming noise, Ranbouen streaked towards Giovanni's Nidoqueen like a rocket and slammed his body into hers, driving her back across the rubble-covered ground until she seemed to stand strong against the attack, 'No one can beat Ranbouen when it comes to speed!'

'Faster.' Giovanni thought as his Nidoqueen seemed to stop Ranbouen, 'But too much speed can be a killer.' His Nidoqueen stepped aside, and let Ranbouen plow through a piece of wall that had been in his direct path, 'Kind of hard to maneuver at that speed isn't it? It's really only meant for one direction, and short distances.'

Getting up Ranbouen shook himself off, and prepared to move again, but that wasn't going to happen.

"Rock Tomb!" Nidoqueen swung her arm and smashed it into the ground to shoot up a land-altering array of rock that would make ample maneuvering nearly impossible to do safely at a high speed with little control, "Superpower!"

Nidoqueen's body and muscles bulked up to painfully impossible levels as she launched herself at Ranbouen and grabbed him before slamming both of her fists off of his back, smashing him into the ground, eliciting a pained howl from him.

Naruto was forcefully hurled from his most loyal Pokémon's back and stood up again only to be punched in the back of the head by Giovanni himself, sending the smaller body of the young boy down to the ground again on his face, "Ugh."

Giovanni was breathing heavily and shook out his hand after hitting Naruto, tearing away his other sleeve to show significant muscle definition in his wound-free arm. He saw Naruto beginning to crawl forward and saw a kunai in the hand of his bad arm before kicking it out of his grasp. If it wasn't broken before from the Gym collapse it was now.

A second kick to the ribs knocked Naruto away, sliding across the ruins. Giovanni pulled out another Poke Ball and tossed it up and down in his palm while Naruto's Arcanine still struggled to get back up after getting his back flattened by Nidoqueen.

'He really is… a strong trainer.' Naruto thought to himself as he laid on his back and looked over at the man, 'He doesn't even have powers like Sabrina did, but every single step of the way... Is he that good?' He wasn't as tough or as strong as Lt. Surge was, but he didn't need to be. His battle experience found him a way out of everything Naruto had tried. His body was fast and strong enough to surprise Naruto twice already.

Giovanni threw the ball into the air and prepared to let it fall to the ground, but Naruto quickly expanded a Poke Ball that he'd been holding against his chest and threw it at Giovanni's ball, forcing both to collide.

Giovanni's Poke Ball smacked back into his face, and Naruto got up off of the ground to run right at the man before punching him dead in the stomach. He spit blood but grit his teeth and shoved Naruto away from him as their next Pokémon entered the battle.

Naruto's little Cubone and Giovanni's Rhydon.

"Horn Drill!" Giovanni ordered, and on the nose of his Rhydon, the imposing horn began to spin as he took aim at either Naruto or his Cubone, whichever would make the easiest target.

Naruto picked up Sazakumoru and dove away from the charging Rhydon and its killer horn, "Ranbouen, Fire Fang!" Ranbouen opened his mouth and latched onto nearby Nidoqueen with flaming teeth with dogged perseverance, not willing to let go no matter how she struggled.

Sazakumoru noticed how injured Naruto and Ranbouen were and proceeded to tear up at the sight of the people closest to her so injured. Naruto was steadily dodging every reckless rush that Rhydon would send their way.

He was always protecting her. Naruto wouldn't let her down to fight. Every time in the past he needed her to step up she couldn't pull it off. His other Pokémon had all come through for him when the chips were down, but in the end she was the one that couldn't toughen up and needed saving.

From where she was being held in Naruto's arm, Sazakumoro sniffled her tears back and took aim before letting fly with her bone, right at Rhydon's head where it connected right on the jaw and knocked it off-balance. The bone hit it a second time on the rebound and knocked it to the ground.

So surprised was he by the swing of momentum, Naruto skidded to a stop and looked at Sazakumoru as her bone flew back to her and landed right in her hands, "Saza-chan?" Anything else he was going to say was interrupted when Ranbouen wound up landing at his feet after being thrown away by Nidoqueen who was looking exhausted after Superpower had come to an end, "Come on boy, we need you here. Can you keep going?"

"It doesn't matter if he can or not." Giovanni said, glaring heatedly at Naruto as he recalled his thoroughly spent Nidoqueen, "He could be as fresh as a daisy and it wouldn't matter. Do you know what my specialty is by now, or have you missed the point? I'm a ground specialist. He was good, but he never had a chance against a more experienced team that had a type advantage like this."

"What do you know?" Naruto snapped back, returning Ranbouen to his Poke Ball. He didn't want to risk his first and most loyal Pokémon getting even more hurt than he had already been, "What do you think I should do, surrender?"

"It would be easier." Giovanni said, "But the time for surrendering passed a long time ago. Now all I think you should do… is die. Fissure."

Rhydon slammed both of its fists onto the ground and a white light formed in a straight, wide line on the ground that engulfed Naruto and his Pokémon. With a horrible, earth-rending noise a horrendous split formed in the ground and before the light even cleared, the sound of Naruto's voice and the cries of his Cubone yelling and echoing into the chasm rang out clearly.

As morbid as it was, it was like music to Giovanni's ears. No one knew how deep the split in the ground went, but once you went in you didn't come out. It was as simple as that.

Giovanni wiped away the blood away from his lips and looked at the mangled skin on his other arm. He certainly had to work for that victory. He had expected nothing less, but he just kept hanging around and hanging around. He couldn't get rid of him no matter what advantage he managed to gain.

But this was what you got when you picked a fight with Kanto's most powerful Gym Leader; no mercy. He told him that he wasn't going underestimate him, and he did no such thing.

"I wish you would have accepted my offer." Giovanni said to seemingly no one, "You would have been invaluable."

This was the last attachment to anything other than Team Rocket that he needed to sever, the Gym. The building was no more. The great amount of land that it stood on was cut right down the middle and extended for who knew how long into Viridian Forest, a great cleft in the ground to signify what had once stood here, and that Giovanni had cast off the title of Gym Leader. It was beneath him and had been for quite some time.

He needed rest. But not yet. He wouldn't receive rest yet. His plans for Team Rocket would have to wait once again.

The ground began shaking uncontrollably, and the half of the split in the earth that Giovanni and his Rhydon stood on found itself cracked and fractured in place after place, tearing great chunks of the plates up and shoving them into each other, warping the field further.

"No!" Giovanni said as he found feel just how unstable the ground was. One false move and pieces of it would slide down into the Fissure, "What is happening?"

From the dirt, Naruto burst up behind him, eyes locked harshly onto his target. He wasn't going to miss. Giovanni turned around far too late to do anything but take a jaw-shattering punch that sent him sprawling right by the Fissure.

Rhydon balked at seeing his trainer get struck by the boy that should have been dead, but before he could charge him and make him suffer for it, he wound up eating the bottom of Sazakumoru's skull right underneath the chin with a Headbutt.

"Rage!" Naruto shouted repeatedly at the top of his lungs, "Rage! Rage! Rage! Rage! Rage!" Sazakumoru responded in kind, smashing Rhydon repeatedly with her bone wherever she could reach. Stomach, head, neck, it didn't matter as long as she was hitting something and knew that it hurt.

It was too much, and Rhydon fell over like a tree, no longer in any condition to fight by any stretch of the imagination.

Panting harshly, Naruto heard the crunch of dirt and looked over to see Giovannin standing up one more time, a dark bruise on his cheek and blood pouring from his lip. Naruto's panting sped up as he slowly started walking in Giovanni's direction, with the latter doing the same. Eventually Naruto started walking faster and faster, finally breaking into a run while screaming at the top of his lungs.

Giovanni yelled right back and charged Naruto as well, but his shout died in his throat when Naruto's fist from his useable arm impacted off of his skull.

Shot after shot bounced off of his face from Naruto's knuckles. The Konoha genin kept punching and punching, rending bruised skin with his fists with each and every move. He kept storming forward and Giovanni kept stepping back with each blow that hit him.

He'd never hit a human being so many times consecutively in his life. And he wasn't thinking about anything else than the next punch. He wouldn't go down. Giovanni just wouldn't give Naruto the satisfaction of folding. Of his body giving out and telling him that he wouldn't allow this kind of pain to be inflicted anymore when it was clear already that he'd lost, that his empire was in shambles, that this boy was _not_ going to allow him to rebuild it all under his control.

Giovanni was not willing to admit that this boy's will to win, to survive and whatever else was pushing him forward after all of that was stronger than his drive to control everything he saw as his.

Even when his heel finally stepped over the edge and failed to touch solid ground beneath it did he ever fall. It was like an invisible force kept him from falling back, and instantly brought Naruto's brutal barrage of punches to an end.

Giovanni had one foot over the edge, and Naruto stopped one last punch just inches short of sending all of him the rest of the way.

The Team Rocket leader's face was completely unrecognizable. A bloody, swollen, cut up mess. His eyes were so puffy that they might as well have been shut. But he and Naruto still made eye contact. For a moment both of them could feel a serious flash of respect from the other, but both quickly erased that thought. While it was true that they both did, they didn't think that the other respected them. They were on opposite sides, and enemies that were still fighting couldn't afford respect like that.

Even so, Giovanni let his own façade slip.

Was… was he smiling at Naruto? He couldn't have been. He just destroyed his own Gym, fully spent every last of his six Pokémon to try and overcome him, and had been beaten to a bloody pulp with Naruto's bare hands. Now he was put in a position that no matter what move he made, it was not going to end without him plummeting to his death.

"Take my hand." Naruto said, opening his fist to an open gesture, "If I can stop our falling like I did the first time with Saza-chan I can save us both."

"No you can't." Giovanni replied haggardly, "Your little Cubone's last Earthquake loosened the ground up too much. Even if you weren't offering me your only good arm to catch yourself with, the soil is too unstable for you to get any kind of hold on it after falling with your weight and mine. We'd both die."

Naruto wanted to argue. Argue that he was an idiot, and that he didn't know anything. He wanted to shout at the top of his lungs right in Giovanni's face that he was Uzumaki Naruto. That he was going to be the next Hokage, and that keeping them both alive even in a situation like the one they were in was something he could do no matter what it looked like.

He was going to do that, but before he could launch into any sort of the same dogged spiel he was able to say against Haku, and Gaara, and Sasuke… Giovanni punched him in the mouth. Hard. Hard enough to knock him back off of the loosened plate of earth that they'd both been teetering on. Hard enough to dislodge it from its precarious position and send it falling into the dark.

Naruto scrambled back to the new edge of oblivion and quickly molded his chakra to shoot it out of his arms as chains. But they didn't extend fast enough, as Giovanni stood on his platform, smirking up at him and flipping him the bird all the way.

Son of a bitch. The man didn't want to hear it, and he didn't want to be 'saved'. He could have even tried to take him with him, Naruto was sort of expecting that, but no.

No matter how far down he sent his chains they wouldn't hit anything. They didn't catch onto anything. Nothing. How far down did that thing go?

The only thing that made him stop was Sazakumoru tugging at the leg of his shorts to get his attention, "C-Cubone? Cu-." His complete focus on what had just occurred scared her. The fact that she was just about to cry got him to look down at her big teary eyes behind her skull.

Naruto bent down and scooped up the fussy Pokémon to hold her in his good arm, even if it did hurt his body immensely, "You did so good." He said, a bit weaker than could normally be expected from him as he grinned down at her, "Saza-chan, that was great."

She seemed to be ecstatic at receiving such praise from Naruto for something other than being sweet. Wiggling around in the grasp of his one arm she finally wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him… with tears of course. Happy tears, not scared or sad tears.

Naruto let her hug it out and returned her to her Poke Ball before beginning to walk over to where Giovanni's jacket lay on the ground. Pinned prominently to the chest of the garment was a Badge that looked like a straight, green plant that would only be found growing in the toughest portions of ground available.

The Earth Badge.

Without saying a word, Naruto stooped down and picked it up off of Giovanni's jacket collar before just staring at it blankly. He stared for so long he felt his fingers go numb due to how hard he had been holding it and pinned it inside of his own clothes before continuing on.

After everything that had happened, obtaining the last Badge available in Kanto felt a bit underwhelming. Compared to the magnitude of what he'd accomplished, flittering around collecting Badges on a whim seemed inconsequential.

The sandaled feet of Naruto carried him through Viridian City on the way back to Pallet Town. It wasn't advised. Ranbouen was hurt, Kamisori was hurt. He wasn't going to be running anywhere for a while, and walking back on foot at contemporary speed would. A Pokémon Center was the best option, but he didn't move that way. Maybe because he didn't know where it was in that town, having never visited it in his past trip there.

His body was on autopilot. The adrenaline from the fight forced the blood pounding in his heart to sound out in his ears.

As people ran past him and didn't even notice the ghost of a boy move in the opposite direction he couldn't hear them crying out in shock and alarm at the fact that Viridian Gym had been destroyed while they'd been taking cover from the freak earthquakes that had occurred in their town.

He couldn't hear anything other than his own frantic heartbeat and his footsteps pounding the pavement one after another until the well-kept roads turned into dirt trails.

The houses and yards turned into wide-open fields, and people were replaced by field Pokémon in abundance such as Pidgeys, Spearows, Rattatas, and even some Hoothoots getting an early start for their nocturnal timeframe as the sun was beginning to set.

All the way, blood trailed from his left arm on the ground, although now he could at least use it to move his fingers after the hour it took him to walk to the outskirts of Viridian City.

His progress was halted by a strong arm from behind, holding him in front of his stomach, keeping him from walking forward another step.

Jiraiya certainly had been surprised, watching the conclusion of that battle. He'd made it sometime after the Gym building had been flattened, attracted that way by the Earthquake that everyone in town felt and took cover from just in case. It only attracted him to the scene of the desperate fight at hand.

He thought battles at the Gym were supposed to be skill exhibitions. Not all-out fights to the finish.

"I'm still wondering…" Jiraiya said to Naruto as the boy seemed to be continuing to aimlessly walk forward, "Are you the luckiest kid I've ever met, or are you just so wholly _un_lucky when it's clear and present for everybody to see that Kami just gives you little karma strokes to get you by?"

Naruto didn't answer, because he'd been entirely out of it for quite some time by that point. When his body had been moving, his mind wasn't even working. He was out on his feet.

A sigh came from the large white-haired man as he picked the boy up over his shoulder and began walking away with him. Not in the direction of Pallet Town, and not in the direction of Viridian City either.

"I would have said it after you came back in Fuchsia City, but with the atmosphere it wouldn't have been the right time. It would have been premature too." Jiraiya stated flatly with a shake of his head, "I can say it now though. Way to solve your own problem brat."

Kanto could now find its Team Rocket problem vanquished. No more leadership stood for them. It would have been preferable for him to pull it off with less blood and rampant destruction, but hey he was thirteen.

Now it was most definitely over though.

There was marked room for improvement though. But that was going to be handled very, very soon. Jiraiya really hoped that he could get Naruto to where they were supposed to be going before the boy woke up, just so he could see the look on his face when he broke it to him.

He was really glad he was allowed to borrow a bird Pokémon from Professor Oak for quick transportation to where they were going.

XxX

(Some Time Later)

The absolute worst sleep of his life.

That was what Naruto could say about what he had experienced. It was terrible. It was bumpy. He swore his head struck something about ten different times. He never opened his eyes though. He was too engrossed in his own slumber to do so. As difficult as it was to stay asleep, it was still what he wanted more than he wanted to wake up.

Then he was subjected to the most uncomfortable bed ever. Of all time. Period.

It sucked. And it was eventually too much for him to keep sleeping while being subjected to.

Blue eyes snapping open, Naruto found himself staring up at a forest canopy. A jungle canopy actually. Weird. There weren't really any forests in the direction he'd been heading in before he'd blacked out, and this didn't look a thing like Viridian Forest.

Okay?

Where the hell was he?

"Well look who finally decided to stop being a lazy-ass." Hearing Jiraiya's voice got Naruto to sit up quickly and look over to the side where he found his teacher tending a fire nearby, "I wasn't expecting you to wake up yet since you haven't stirred a bit in the last day, but since you have you can eat what I'm making. You can eat later."

They had to get to a little something important first.

Naruto looked at himself in a new set of clothes with his wounds on his arm healed and his other bumps and bruises long gone. He didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened, "You brought me here?" A nod came from Jiraiya, "…Where is here?"

Though Naruto couldn't see it, a grin sprang up onto Jiraiya's countenance as he continued to face the fire, back to his student, "Our home for the next nine months. And your new personal hell."

"Say what now?"

The confused squawk that came from Naruto didn't deter Jiraiya as he elaborated, "We got permission from the people we know that are supposed to regulate this place to stay here. A place where no humans are supposed to be allowed to stay, meant to be all wilderness. A place with pretty powerful Pokémon too from what I've seen. You see, now that you've shown me some aptitude in making things work for you… now comes the point of me proceeding to beat being awesome into you."

"I'm already awesome." Naruto said, puffing his chest out. Hell, he'd done the lion's share of saving Kanto, even if only a handful of people around would ever know about it. Would this make the second or third country he'd saved? All of the hits to the head made him lose count.

"No." Jiraiya deadpanned, "No you're not. I'm awesome. You're passable. Live with it." That quickly deflated Naruto's ego with a swiftness, but Jiraiya wasn't done yet, "You're literally going to have to live with it. You see you proved to me that you can survive, which is great, because you're now officially mine until I relieve you of that burden, and you're going to need that will of yours to survive. It's really good that there aren't any people around here for fifty miles in any direction. No property damage you see."

The sudden shift in tone threw Naruto off as he blinked in confusion and tilted his head to the side, "…What?"

Instead of answering, Jiraiya stood up and cleared his throat, "Alright, listen up maggot! Jiraiya-sama's about to give you the new pecking order. It goes you, the dirt, the worms inside of the dirt, Jiraiya-sama's stool, your Pokémon, _my_ Pokémon, then Jiraiya-sama. Any questions?"

Seriously, Naruto was _so_ confused. This was barely explaining anything and seemed to be more along the lines of manic rambling than an output of useful information.

"Uh-." The moment Naruto opened his mouth and a sound that seemed the slightest bit like a question came out, Jiraiya punted him back, sending him careening through the foliage until he wound up taking a plunge down a very high cliff.

He put them there on purpose, just so he could get away with doing that. Jiraiya had a flair for the dramatic for those that hadn't noticed it yet.

Déjà vu.

"ANOTHER RAVINE?" That shit was getting old, "I FUCKING HATE YOU ERO-SENNIN!" He shouted all the way down as he fell from the sky.

This would mark the second time in a few days that Naruto fell down one, and the second overall time in Naruto's life that Jiraiya would be the one that threw him down it to begin with. There was no Gamabunta in sight to do anything about it this time either.

Jiraiya wound up walking his way to the edge and looking down as he could hear Naruto's body getting its fall broken by all of the leafy, branchy treetops below. This was by design. Apparently he'd disturbed a large amount of bird Pokémon on the way down as there had been a multitude of them flying away in alarm once his body disturbed their nests.

Cupping his hands by his mouth, Jiraiya shouted down at Naruto who he knew full well could hear him since he wasn't dead or even that badly hurt, "Enjoy the climb back up, bitch! Then we can begin!"

Welcome to the Safari Zone.

And he thought Jiraiya had been hard on him before.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Konoha 14: Safari Zone<span>

"What the fuck are we doing here Raido?" Genma asked as he hid underneath some bushes near a very small lake, seemingly waiting on something. What it was, he didn't know, but he didn't go against orders and Raido was his superior.

Right next to him on the ground, the scar-faced Raido was doing the exact same thing, "Good question." Raido said before turning to his other side, "Minato-senpai, what the fuck are we doing here?"

Their time in Kanto was drawing to a close. They were basically all stocked up on what they needed for a return trip to the Elemental Nations and it was about time to depart. It still didn't mean that Minato couldn't take a few more jobs though. Leaving a good work impression would probably benefit any Konoha ninjas that came back… if any ever came back.

Judging by the distance from their home and the tumultuous weather that marred their trip and threw them onto that course in the first place, it was probably unlikely.

Minato was carefully observing the lack ahead of them with a focused intensity, waiting for the moment they had all been staking that lake out for, "Raido, I told you already. We have to catch something _very_ rare. A Dragonair."

Ooh. That _was_ rare from what they knew about anything with a dragon in its name. Why begged the question of why they were doing it to begin with.

"For Oak?"

"No."

"For you? Or Kushina? Souvenir?"

"No."

Well then what for? Both Genma and Raido looked over at each other before the latter shrugged and tried one more question, kind of out of left field, "…For your secret Kanto mistress and/or pending love-child?"

That one caught Minato off-guard as he actually lapsed in his vigilance long enough to turn and glare at one of his two confidants, "Don't even joke about that. I'll kick your ass. Then Kushina will kill you. Then she'll kill me even though you're lying."

He was a loyal man damn it.

"Sorry, it was a joke." Genma apologized for Raido's sake, "So who is it for then? It's not for that 'Dragon Master' Lance prick is it? Because I still hate him for taking the Gyarados _I_ caught fair and square out of that Cerulean City Gym."

Yes, Genma was still pissed about that. He'd risked life and limb playing bait for Minato against a raging, rampaging Gyarados and he couldn't even have it as his own after he wound up throwing the Poke Ball that captured it.

Cerulean City had called for that Lance guy to handle the Gyarados first for free since he was the greatest dragon Pokémon specialist in the world, but he was slow… compared to Minato who they then hired in return once the rampage got to be too much.

Genma wanted to keep it, but he then proved he couldn't control it, thus starting the trouble all over again, so they gave it to Lance. Genma still held that grudge and wanted his damn Gyarados. Spiky-haired, cape-wearing assclown… taking his hard-earned Pokémon.

"No, not him." Minato said, "He's not even in Kanto anymore. He left for Johto after we gave him the Gyarados to handle. That's where he's from."

"What the fuck is a Johto?" Raido asked, not the least bit familiar with the local geography.

"It's another place." Minato said with a shrug. He didn't really know. He didn't really care either. He wasn't going to be headed there for anything. They had to go home, "Now come on, focus up."

And so the stakeout continued and dragged on with no end in sight. The waters were still. The wind was nonexistent. It was boring.

"…" Genma was shifting uneasily out of boredom and cramping up due to remaining still for so long on his belly, "Hey, Minato-senpai, what does a Dragonair even look like?" Minato wordlessly slid him over the field guide that Oak had lent him a while back to show him the page in question, "Oh that thing? Why didn't you tell me that? I saw that thing leave while you and Raido were talking."

"What?"

"Yeah! It didn't look _that_ tough so I didn't care about it at the time."

"What else did you think was in that lake strong enough that nothing else even tried getting near it?"

"I don't know! It looks like a wimpy Pokémon! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you're the junior! If I wasn't distracted… ugh." He took his eyes off of the prize for one second, and then an uninformed Genma dropped the ball. It was probably his fault though, "Which way?"

Following Genma, the other two Konoha shinobi darted out of their cover and took off in the direction that Genma swore he saw the Dragonair go off in. They had to leave before they started getting grey hairs from this crap.

Yep, there was nothing like a good old relaxing war to take a load of stress off after visiting the Pokémon Continent.

* * *

><p><span>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<span>

Ranbouen (Arcanine): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire), ExtremeSpeed (Normal), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Electric).

Hogohei (Cloyster): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal), Spike Cannon (Normal), Surf (Water).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting), Revenge (Fighting), Substitute (Normal), Hi Jump Kick (Fighting), Blaze Kick (Fire).

Sazakumoru (Cubone): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock), Swords Dance (Normal), Thrash (Normal), Earthquake (Ground).

Shujinken (Misdreavus): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Double Team (Normal), Shadow Ball (Ghost), Pain Split (Normal), Thunderbolt (Electric).

Kamisori (Aerodactyl): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Ice Fang (Ice), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Thunder), Roar (Normal), Wing Attack (Flying), Crunch (Dark), Agility (Psychic), Fly (Flying), AncientPower (Rock), Iron Head (Steel), Hyper Beam (Normal).

Giovanni's Current Pokémon Team

Nidoking: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Earthquake (Ground), Horn Drill (Normal), Body Slam (Normal), Ice Punch (Ice), Fire Punch (Fire), Crush Claw (Fighting), Thrash (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Hidden Power (Normal), Dragon Tail (Dragon), Hyper Beam (Normal).

Nidoqueen: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Horn Attack (Normal), Poison Sting (Poison), Superpower (Fighting), Mega Punch (Normal), Rock Tomb (Rock), Double Kick (Fighting), Iron Head (Steel), Incinerate (Fire), Smack Down (Rock).

Dugtrio: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Dig (Ground), Scratch (Normal), Double Team (Normal), Night Slash (Dark), Tri Attack (Normal), Sand-Attack (Ground), Mud Slap (Ground), Sand Tomb (Ground), Echoed Voice (Normal).

Golem: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Rollout (Rock), Magnitude (Ground), Bulldoze (Ground), Defense Curl (Normal), Explosion (Normal), Rock Throw (Rock), Brick Break (Fighting), Sandstorm (Ground), Roar (Normal), Endure (Normal).

Rhyhorn: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Fury Attack (Normal), Take Down (Normal), Stomp (Normal), Tail Whip (Normal), Harden (Normal), Scary Face (Normal), Rock Smash (Fighting), Rock Blast (Rock), Rock Slide (Rock).

Rhydon: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Horn Drill (Normal), Fissure (Ground), Megahorn (Bug), Thunderbolt (Electric), Rest (Normal), Counter (Fighting), Drill Run (Ground), Surf (Water), Focus Blast (Fighting), Hammer Arm (Fighting), Stomp (Normal), Hyper Beam (Normal).

* * *

><p><strong>And that's going to bring this whole story arc to a close. I'm going to make this <strong>_**way**_** crazier for the next one in Johto, because that will probably be the last for the story more than likely. Until then sit tight and count on me.**

**Now, I have a documentary treatment to write and permissions to film that I need to obtain so if you'll excuse me the real world beckons.**

**Later all, Kenchi out.**


	19. Going My Way?

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. I'm throwing my hat in the ring as a member of the creative team responsible for coming up with more Pokémon. My theory for coming up with new species will involve punching in 'animal kingdom' on Google Search and hitting 'I'm Feeling Lucky', combining the first two species I see.

**Chapter 19: Going My Way?**

* * *

><p>Nine months. Three months shy of a year.<p>

It had been nine months since Fuchsia City Pokémon Gym had come under new leadership. Nine months since Team Rocket's crime empire in Kanto had been rendered to tatters. Nine months since the aforementioned Gym Leader had to bid adieu to her staunchest supporter, friend, and lead catalyst to making her believe in herself enough to take over the esteemed position once held by her late father.

Janine thought that being a Gym Leader was going to be everything that she hoped and dreamed that it would be. Honestly, she loved it. The respect, the fact that she was beginning to build Fuchsia City Gym's prestige back up to what it used to be was one of her dreams and to actually be doing it was incredible. Every time she defeated an aspiring trainer it became more and more the place where only the strongest went to prove that they were really worthwhile.

Despite all of that, it was getting to be a tad monotonous.

She'd wake up, see to the Pokémon kept at the Gym, do her own training for the morning, see to the underling trainers under her command, face any challenges that would come her way that day if anyone did indeed come to fight against her, make sure her underlings took care of the Pokémon properly, blah, blah, blah.

It was all maintenance and upkeep. Diligent to her task or not, Janine could see how Koga had tired of the life of a Gym Leader. She couldn't even really take jobs anymore, as she had been trying to improve on the reputation of the Gym, so that meant no burglaries, and with Team Rocket gone there weren't many combat missions available. Even if there had been, she'd have to send her underlings out before she could think of taking one herself, so that they could gain experience and all that.

'God, I hope I'm not getting bored of this.' Janine thought to herself as she stepped out of her morning shower and dried herself off, 'I don't get it. I mean I spent the last three years travelling around and doing missions just to live. I wanted to come home, I wanted to lead the Gym, I wanted all of this, so why do I feel like something's missing?'

Something _was_ missing. She didn't know what it was. She couldn't put her finger on it. The last time she'd really had fun was when she'd been running around Kanto with Naruto. As terrifying and life-threatening as it tended to be most of the time, when it wasn't putting her life at risk they got along well and had a great time.

…She'd had a great time at least. She thought about it all the time, more than any time she'd spent beforehand travelling by herself. It made it hard to focus. The stupid yellow-headed jerk and his stupid pretty blue eyes. Stupid goofy grin that made you feel like everything was always alright.

Her thoughts were disrupted thankfully when she got a knock at the bathroom door, "Janine." Her aunt Aya's voice said from the other side, "You have company waiting outside."

"Okay, I'll be out there as soon as I can." It seemed like it was going to be just another day.

XxX

(Fuchsia City Gym – Center Garden)

Exiting the residential portion of the mansion, affixing her wrist guard to its proper place as she did so, Janine's eyes looked up at the refined figure of Erika clad in one of her usual elaborate kimonos sitting out right in front of the centerpiece pond of the garden.

Quietly tiptoeing over, she found that Erika had managed to doze off somehow while sitting in seiza. Poor thing. Janine swore that she was narcoleptic or something? Maybe spending too much time around grass Pokémon and all of their Stun Spore, Sleep Powder and PoisonPowder affected her like this.

Sitting down by the still sleeping Gym Leader's side, Janine just took a moment to look out over the quiet pond, letting loose a sigh before grabbing Erika's shoulders and shaking, "Wake up! Fire in the Gym!"

"Goodness, get the Pokémon out!" Erika shouted, jumping up to her feet and looking around rapidly before realizing that she had been had, "Oh you are not as funny as you think you are." Erika said, pouting at Janine before sitting back down in the grass, "So how is Gym Leader life treating you dear?"

"I think I'm bored." In return, Erika just regarded her with a deadpan stare, "I'm serious! Sitting all cushy in your Gym and giving lectures at universities all day might work for you, because that was your thing even when I'd been travelling, but I've always been out doing things since I was a little girl. It's a hard adjustment."

"There, there." Erika said, holding one of Janine's hands and patting it reassuringly, "I'm certain that it is a little something of a change for you, even now."

A little something of a change? She was starting to go a bit stir crazy.

"So Naruto is still supposed to be in the Safari Zone isn't he?" Erika asked, trying to come up with something of a workable solution that would help, "How long has it been?"

"Nine months and four days." Janine said as if she'd been counting the days since Jiraiya first checked in with the warden that he'd be taking the unconscious Naruto in with him. Janine had signed off on it saying that it was okay.

"The entrance is in Fuchsia City." Erika said as if Janine didn't know, "Why don't you go in and see him? Just for fun, make a day of it. It couldn't be too terribly far."

"Ha. I can't find him. It'd take more than a just day." She had already tried. More than once actually. Without going inside, it was hard to believe just how vast the entire place was, "Have you ever been in the Safari Zone? And besides, Mister Jiraiya only said that they were going to be in there for nine months. Well it's been that long already."

"Mmm." Erika said before deciding to get to the heart of the matter of why she was there, "So I'm here to personally inform you of something of great importance to all Kanto Gym Leaders. The last year-plus of activities have shaken up our standing amongst the other region and their assembly of Gym Leaders."

"I'm listening." Janine said, pulling her knees close to her chest, "Not sure what this has to do with us yet, but I'm listening."

"With all of the upheaval from Team Rocket, the fact that Viridian City Gym was destroyed-." Erika ignored the extremely large grin that came onto Janine's face that she tried to hide behind her lifted knees, "-The death of at least two Gym Leaders, and their replacements being so young, we've been asked by the Johto organization to prove that the title of Gym Leader can still readily apply to most of Kanto's representatives."

"So… they basically called us out."

"Simply put, yes." Erika said, finding it amusing how her old friend basically summed it all up in such a simple manner, "As the supervisor of the Kanto Leaders I've spoken to Johto's supervisor and we have decreed that in four months time Indigo Plateau will play host to an exhibition tournament of sorts. Kanto's eight Gym Leaders will be pitted randomly in battle against Johto's eight Gym Leaders."

Janine raised an eyebrow in confusion at this declaration, "Erika, Kanto only has seven right now." The kunoichi pointed out, "Nobody's replaced Lt. Surge yet in Vermillion City. You know… after that Zapdos cooked him with a Thunder attack and took out a big chunk of the Magnet Train station tunnel in Saffron?"

That was a nasty little bit of trouble there. The damage Zapdos caused set back the Magnet Train project even longer after Team Rocket was taken out of commission in Kanto. They had to repair it before they could continue… and get Lt. Surge's smoked corpse out.

It was on-course now though.

"Yes, I'm aware of that." Erika deadpanned, remembering the trouble that they'd had replacing Lt. Surge after his death. The difficulty in finding worthy Gym Leaders was the sole reason that Sabrina was allowed to remain in her position as Saffron City's Gym Leader, "We need someone however. But we cannot locate Red to take the position as I originally wanted."

"Why Red?" Janine asked before snapping her fingers in realization, "Oh, because he won the tournament at Indigo six months ago. But if he wanted to be a Gym Leader he could have taken the position at Viridian instead of Blue. So why are you talking to me about any of this? What do you want me to do about it?"

A small smile came to Erika's face that she hid behind the sleeve of her kimono, "I didn't come here just to catch up with you dear. I came here hoping that someone special returned from a sabbatical and would have come here first."

"You're talking about Babyface aren't you?" Janine asked. She didn't even need to raise the question and she knew it.

"But of course 'Nina. We don't have time to keep searching for a legitimate permanent replacement like with you or Blue." The sly looking botanist princess explained. If it hadn't happened by now, four months wouldn't be enough time to find a good Gym Leader and ensure that they were aptly prepared for the coming cross-regional challenge, "For lack of a better term, we need a ringer."

XxX

(Some Time Later – Fuchsia City)

"There you go." Jiraiya said, patting a now taller Naruto on the back as they exited a clothing store, "I got you a whole set of all new threads, and the best new device whatchamajigger I could find. Aren't I a great sensei? So giving?"

Naruto was equipped for the even temperature weather for now with orange pants and black sandals, as well as a black t-shirt with a red spiral on the front. For now he was forgoing the jacket that Jiraiya had purchased to go with the clothes since it was still such comfortable weather in Kanto. On his wrist there was some kind of weird black and white wristwatch that was supposed to serve several purposes. He only wished it came in orange or something.

Looking up from his new clothes, Naruto smacked Jiraiya on the arm, "You turned every stitch of clothes I already had into rags in the Safari Zone. And you used my Moon Stone money to pay for them you stingy bastard!"

"Better your clothes than you."

"You did it to _me_ too! There aren't any medics in that place! I had to heal all of that myself!"

"You're alive aren't you?"

The argument was moot, thus Naruto ceased in his attempted making of his point. He was just grateful that all of that crap was over with and done. If he never went back inside of the Safari Zone for as long as he lived he'd probably be just fine with that.

Jiraiya didn't say it, but he didn't feel like going anywhere like that anytime soon either. He'd had his own life-threatening problems during Naruto's training, and right now he wanted nothing more than to relax, "…Well I'm going to the beach before I start running my errands." Jiraiya said, pointing to the south, "Wanna go?"

"Uh, not really Ero-sennin." Naruto said before giving a half-hearted thumbs up, "You go have fun with that though."

"Eh, suit yourself." Jiraiya said with a shrug as he went on about his way. He'd reconvene with the kid later. Right now he desperately needed some Jiraiya-time. And Jiraiya time involved scantily clad, or clothes-free women. The beach was a great place to start for that, "You're an adult. Well not really, but close enough that I don't have to watch you like a three-year old. I'll take care of your Aerodactyl until I give it back."

Waving his sensei off, Naruto threw his hands behind his neck and casually walked off in his own direction. Jiraiya was going to go have his own fun to unwind, but the homesick genin didn't know what he wanted to do.

He hadn't seen any of the friends he'd made in Kanto in over nine months. He hadn't even been able to keep in touch with any of them due to the isolated nature of Jiraiya's forced training.

They were probably all busy doing important things like… whatever it was that Pokémon Trainers did. Kami, for all of his travelling around he'd been so busy when he'd been doing it that he never really figured out what else Pokémon Trainers did for a living other than battle and get stronger.

That was probably why organizations like Team Rocket had existed… to give a purpose to all of the work it took to raise powerful Pokémon, even when they were just stealing the better ones, making them brutal and feral, and their leader had been trying to raise an army of them to control and take over the continent.

All of a sudden, Naruto felt something and quickly took off for a low-lying rooftop before he found himself caught up in it. After a few seconds, a trio of young men dressed in the ninja garb of the Fuchsia Gym trainees landed in the street where he'd been and went to look around at the store he'd just exited from.

One went in and came back out after a few moments, "Well he was definitely here. There were some old beat-up clothes in the trash that looked like stuff we were told he'd be caught wearing."

"Where the hell did he go then?"

"I don't know. The clerk said he left all of two minutes ago with some tall guy with white hair. He said something about the beach maybe?"

"Fine we'll check beach then. Maybe we can catch up before they get all the way out there.

"That'll take an hour to get to. I don't have any Pokémon that can carry us so we've got to get there on foot."

"Aw."

"Shut up."

And like that they were gone, leaving Naruto to turn around and lie on his back while looking up at the blue sky, "I probably could have just gone down there and saw what they wanted… but screw that." So Fuchsia reps were looking for him? It had to be Janine. He wondered how she was doing actually. It had been a while.

"You couldn't have just let them pick you up could you Babyface? You always have to do things the hard way."

A figure stood directly over Naruto, blocking his view of the sun and shading themselves out of view simultaneously. Squinting to try and see who it was, Naruto eventually let a slow grin spread over his face. The voice, the scent, the outline (though it was a bit more grown up now), it was all familiar. And there was only one person that had ever referred to him as 'Babyface' in such a familiar manner.

Naruto snickered before extending a hand upwards, "Help me get up-." The soft, smaller hand clasped around his and yanked him back up to his feet where he then gathered up his friend in a big hug, "-So I can do this!"

Despite herself, Janine couldn't help but let out a laugh as she tried to push on Naruto's face as if she were trying to get away, "Alright, alright! Let me go Babyface, I'm supposed to be a big deal Gym Leader in this city. I can't be seen like this!"

It was good to see that dumb bastard again after so much time. Oh God, were his clothes padded for added defense? No, hold the phone, that was him. More precisely the muscle on his body.

And was he taller than her now, because her feet weren't touching the ground?

"Babyface, chill!" Eventually Janine did manage to get him to let go as she let out a breath and planted her hands on his shoulders to give him a once over before walking circles around him, "You got bigger. You need a bit of a haircut too. You're looking kind of shaggy."

Naruto scoffed but let his eye trail after her as he circled him until she got of sight each time, "There aren't barbers in the Safari Zone. I had to do it myself. I hate cutting my own hair." Janine looked the same, but at the same time she didn't. There was the same mischievous glint in her eyes that there had always been, but it seemed more reserved now, as if she were more responsible.

Something about her was more grown up, and it wasn't just her body.

"Later, later." Janine said, waving off potential concerns about his hair, "Do you know how hard it was to try and find you in the Safari Zone? What were you guys doing that whole time?"

The thoughts brought along by the forced flashback to his nine months of getting beaten down by Jiraiya prompted Naruto to visibly recoil as if he were being beaten up, "D-Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal." The first rule about Jiraiya's training; do not talk about Jiraiya's training.

Weird reaction, "…Okay." A smile then found itself back on Janine's face, "So what are you planning to do since I'm guessing your training's done?"

Oh yeah, at one point in the final days of Jiraiya's damnably detestable training, he'd told Naruto what his plan of action was going to be after they were done, "Well Ero-sennin still wants to go around and try to see if he can find what's up with our summoning jutsu, but he has to go check in with the toads first since it's been a while. That's gonna take a few days for him to get far enough away from whatever's blocking it so that he can summon."

"Well what are you going to do?"

"I dunno. What do you think?"

He definitely didn't want to wait around with Jiraiya trying to find a ride out to sea so that he could do what he needed. But then he didn't really have anything else to do while waiting for Jiraiya to come back.

Apparently, Naruto's lack of an idea on what he was going to do next was exactly what Janine wanted to hear, "I've got a proposition for you. In a while there's going to be some big series of exhibition battles between Kanto's Gym Leaders and Johto's Gym Leaders-."

"Wait, what's a Johto, and why do they have Gym Leaders too?"

"…Johto's another region, and on this continent the whole Gym Leader system is really common."

"Whoa. Cool."

Much to Naruto's chagrin, Janine brightly reached out and gave him some pats on the head, "I knew you'd think so. Anyway, we're one Gym Leader short after the whole Team Rocket thing, and it's got to be eight-on-eight. Erika asked me if I could ask you if you wanted to help. So how about it?"

Hell yes he wanted to help! Beating up on the Gym Leaders of some entirely different place? That sounded awesome! And this time there wasn't a chance that bad things would happen, because Giovanni was dead and there was no Team Rocket after their seat of power had been wrecked in Saffron City.

Besides, looking around for what Jiraiya wanted seemed like it'd be boring. Naruto had the spirit of a wanderer and he wanted his awesome adventure to begin anew.

"…But." Naruto said upon taking second to think about it and deflating upon realizing something, "Ero-sennin is borrowing Kamisori so he can get around to where he needs to be quicker. I don't know how long he'll be gone so we can't just go around that quickly until he gives him back. And I'm not a Gym Leader either."

"Do you still have the badge you took off of Surge?"

"Yeah?"

"Then we can say you're his replacement and if all of the other Kanto Gym Leaders agree nobody can say anything about it."

Hell, Johto probably wouldn't care. If the Johto Gym Leaders had never heard of Naruto they would think he was just a placeholder meant to round out the team with no expectations from their side for him to win. It was common knowledge that Kanto was having trouble replacing the Vermillion City Gym Leader and hadn't come across any candidates for the position yet.

"And don't worry about your teacher having your Aerodactyl for now either." Janine continued brightly, "The tournament isn't for a few months. All we have to do is be at the Indigo Plateau."

"Alright. I'm going to Johto then." Naruto replied quickly with a shrug, as if it were that simple, "Ero-sennin will find me and catch up. He always does."

Wait, what?

An owlish expression came over Janine's face at the cavalier declaration that he was going to be heading away again, "Right now? Without Mister Jiraiya?" No, he just came back from the Safari Zone and now she wasn't going to see him again until he rolled into Indigo Plateau to fight for the Kanto Gym Leaders? "You're not going to stay here in Fuchsia City and train?"

"Well if I don't go now, I think Erika might make me actually take over Vermillion's Gym until the tournament." Naruto said with a grimace. The grass Pokémon princess could probably smooth-talk him into taking over if she really felt the notion to try, "I definitely don't want to be an actual Gym Leader… but then you can't come with me can you?"

Not really. Fuchsia City had a Gym Leader that actually remained behind to run the Gym herself instead of the way Koga had spent years never adhering to his responsibilities. Janine didn't want to do the same, even if she really wanted to go with Naruto.

"I can't…" She eventually said in response to Naruto's question, "Babyface, it's good to see you again, but I just took over. It hasn't even been a year yet. I can't just knock off for a few months to run around Johto for no reas-..." Stopping in the middle of her sentence she started pacing around and rubbing at her chin.

"What?" Naruto asked, a bit worried at how she had suddenly started thinking deeply before she grabbed his hand and jumped down from the rooftop while holding onto him, "Oi! Grip!"

"Need a phone, need a phone, need a phone!"

XxX

(Celadon City – Celadon Condominiums)

"What?" Erika asked flatly from her seat by the video phone where she was receiving a call, "Do you mind repeating yourself? I believe I had something crazy in my ear."

"_Ha. Funny."_ Janine dryly returned from the other end of the call, _"Seriously. You heard me right. I need to take a training trip. A sabbatical if you will."_

"_Sabbatical? Spell sabbatical."_

A person muttered something off-camera that prompted Janine to turn around and rebuke them quietly, _"Shut up Babyface! You definitely can't spell it!"_

"Is Naruto there with her?" Erika wondered aloud. She couldn't see him but she could swear that she heard a ghost of his voice just a moment ago. Either way, she had to get back on track, "But really? A training trip 'Nina? And you're not just going to goof off the entire time?"

A perturbed look was evident on Janine's face, _"Look, I'm the second newest Gym Leader and I didn't make it to the finals of the Pokémon League like Blue did. Other than Red, people consider him Kanto's best trainer. I don't have that, and I know that you don't think I'm that strong either."_

Erika chuckled nervously and looked away from the screen with an embarrassed blush, "Don't be silly."

Janine didn't share the forced mirth of the situation, _"No, I mean it. I've gone unbeaten since I became the Gym Leader, but no one in Kanto thinks much of me. You all lost within the last nine months in your Gyms, even if it was just one-offs to Naruto or Red or Blue."_ She sighed and tried to amend her position, _"Look, other than Blaine, we're collectively younger than Johto's leaders, so we've got something to prove even without all of the things that have happened here. I can settle in and be a proper leader after this is over. Right now, we need some idea of what we're getting into."_

"And it absolutely has to be you?"

"_Would you like to go? Or do you know anyone better suited for the job?"_

As loathe as Erika was to let this go so easily, there was a point to be had. It wasn't as if Janine was settling into her Gym Leader position under normal circumstances. She'd taken the position after having to fight her father to the death, and after taking the title and performing dutifully by turning away all challengers who came to take advantage of the newbie Gym Leader the region was being called out to prove that their strength hadn't waned by another nearby region.

It wasn't like she'd been broken in slowly. The weight had quickly been set on her without real preparation. One day she hadn't been a leader, the next day she was. It had occurred that suddenly.

And right now, making sure Kanto as a whole looked strong was more important than Janine adhering to the traditions of the Gym Leader. Until it was all over at least.

"Okay, I'll allow it." Erika eventually relented with a sigh, "I guess I need to begin working on a substitute to fill Vermillion City's place since our choice to take that spot is nowhere to be found."

"_Oh, I heard he was going to Johto too."_ Janine chirped brightly, _"Don't worry. I'll find him. He won't say no."_

"I'm sure he won't." Erika said with a wry smile, "Well either way good luck. Make sure you check in and _don't_ miss the assembly time for the tournament, whatever you do."

"_Aye-aye lady supervisor."_

Sparing each other one last wave over the video feed, both girls hung up and ended the call. Uncharacteristically, Erika allowed herself to fall directly backward off of the cushion she had been using as a seat for the duration of the call.

It was a good thing her floors remained spotless and that her maids had gone home for the evening so that no one saw her do such a thing. It was very unbecoming, and she wasn't in a very dignified position.

She didn't bother moving as she merely stared up at the ceiling dully from her place on her back, "This entire tournament is going to wind up being a monumental headache come competition time."

XxX

(Some Time Later – With Jiraiya – Pallet Town – Professor Oak's Laboratory)

A largely grinning Jiraiya sat out front of Oak's laboratory overlooking the rest of the small town before him, sitting down and enjoying a bit of time to relax, "I love this country despite how stupidly dangerous it is." He remarked while rubbing his chin and remembering his side trip before he'd made his way there, "I wish Cinnabar Island was still around, but there are still some great beaches in Kanto."

"Yes, but your boy is the catalyst that led to those responsible being stopped. Give him thanks for me." Oak said with a smile, "You gave him my thanks for his part in a job well done didn't you?"

"Yeah sure." And by that he meant that he said absolutely nothing about anyone thanking Naruto. There wasn't any time for that with what they'd been up to in the Safari Zone, "You're still pissed off that I didn't let him out to fight in that little tournament thing you sent that messenger Pidgey to tell me about aren't you?"

"It wasn't just a 'little tournament.'" Oak replied a bit grumpily, "It was the Pokémon League and it only takes place in Kanto once every three years. I wanted to battle him like I did with my grandson, Red, and Green to see where he stood." He neglected to say that he used to be the champion in his youth and still had a sizeable amount of powerful Pokémon at his beck and call to battle with.

"That was six months ago right?" Jiraiya asked, getting a nod, "Yeah, if he came in ready and if there weren't any rules he would have beaten you."

"You're not even going to-?"

"-Yep, beaten you clean… well, maybe not clean, but he would have won anyway."

"Jiraiy-."

"-Clean!"

"Ji-."

"-CLEAN!"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"You can talk now Sam." Jiraiya told him, getting a big chuckle out of the annoyed look on his Kanto colleague's face, "Go ahead. I won't do it again."

A dirty look was shot his way from the leading mind on Pokémon in the region before the conversation got more cordial again, "Did you think about what I told you about going to Johto?" He asked, "The story Minato told me about the storm at the seas that led him here sounds similar to a legend that is heard quite often in that region. Stories of Mew's behavior aren't consistent with setting up things the nature of a barrier that would block foreign teleportation techniques, but the Pokémon of Johto's legends are thought of as guardians."

"That was actually where I was going to go next after I figured out what to do with the brat." Jiraiya confirmed, "He doesn't need me, and there's not much more I can teach him right now until he gets some more seasoning. I'll head off that way and call him when I get somewhere decent enough to stop."

He'd call it a training exercise or something for Naruto to catch up and find him. Maybe he'd put it on a time limit just to make him sweat a bit.

His thoughts were brought to a close when Oak's granddaughter Daisy came outside, holding the receiver of a video phone, "Uh, grandpa there's a call here for Mister Jiraiya. It's Naruto. I couldn't see him on the screen but I remember his voice."

How did he even know he was there? Well he probably could have guessed that he'd wind up there eventually so it wasn't any kind of stretch that he could have deduced that much. Whatever.

Jiraiya took the phone from the girl with a nod of thanks before speaking up boisterously, "Hello, hello, hello brat. You miss me already?"

"_Actually, I just called here to leave you a message since I knew you'd turn up in Pallet Town soon enough. I'm going to Johto, so whenever you're giving me back Kamisori figure out where that is and wait somewhere there for me, alright Ero-sennin?"_

What? He was already going that way, "Hold on a minute, why are you going to Johto?"

"…_Why not?"_

"That's not the question I asked!"

"_Screw you! What else were you gonna make me do?" _Extended silence reigned supreme, _"…Well?"_

Jiraiya remained silent, still trying to think of something to get the upper hand with in this argument. And he was failing miserably in that regard, "Er… show your elders some damn respect brat!"

"_Right. Sure. I'll definitely look into doing that. In the meantime I'm already on the way to Johto so bi~~~te me!"_

Even though he wasn't on a screen for Jiraiya to see, he just knew that Naruto was physically taunting him somehow without even needing to look at him. It made him want to punch him if he hadn't gotten enough of doing that for the last nine months already.

What the hell would he want that was in Johto to begin with? It wasn't like Naruto would randomly get a wild hair up his ass and decide to explore another region for no reason whatsoever. That was _too_ spontaneous, even for someone that was supposed to be unpredictable.

"I've still got your Aerodactyl brat, so ha!"

"…" There was some arguing over the line in the background between Naruto and… was that a girl? He was travelling with a girl again? It wasn't the same one from before was it? Janine? She was supposed to be in a high-ranking, important position now, _"Alright! Fine! I'll get Kamisori back from Ero-sennin later, but you totally owe me! We should be turning around right now and you know it."_

"How close are you to Johto if you don't mind me asking you Naruto?" Professor Oak asked after listening to a good chunk of the conversation already, "Without a flying Pokémon to get you there I can imagine that it would take a while."

"_Oh, Ranbouen was fast enough to get us a long way. But we're taking a route across the ocean right now."_

He was probably on Route 27. That was a long way. At this rate they'd be only a few hours away from landing if Naruto was going the way he assumed that he was going, "How long have you been travelling?"

"_Four days east out from Fuchsia. I told you, Ranbouen is fast."_

Indeed he did.

"Well anyway, when you get to New Bark Town you should locate a man by the name of Professor Elm." Oak informed Naruto. He was going to give Jiraiya that bit of information first, but since Naruto was already on the way there why not? "He's my contemporary in Johto, so if you give my name he should be willing to help you with anything that you'd need."

"_Okay. Not sure what I'd need anything for, but sure. Thanks. How do you even know we're going to end up in this New Bark Town place?"_

"Trust me, you will." The wizened old man assured him. He was taking the sea route. Unless Naruto was planning on riding whatever he was on _all_ the way to Olivine City, he'd wind up in New Bark Town, "Give Elm my regards."

"_Alright. Hey, I think I see a sign by the riverbank."_ Silence. Silence, _"And fuck, we're in New Bark Town. Don't say anything Professor."_

"I wouldn't dream of it my boy."

XxX

(With Naruto – Johto – New Bark Town)

"Alright." Naruto said, speaking into his wrist device as if it were a phone, "Talk to you later, and tell Ero-sennin to get his ass over here and give Kamisori back!" With that, the conversation ended as Naruto and Janine rode on the sizeable shell of Naruto's Cloyster Hogohei straight up a river inlet that they'd taken from the sea, "I'm gonna abuse this Pokégear so hard. So what do you know about this place?"

"I haven't been to Johto in a long time, but it's just as big as Kanto is." Janine started to say, "There's a bit of a rivalry between our Gym Leaders and theirs since we're so close but we're separated by Mt. Silver, the Victory Road route, and the water."

"So are we gonna get into some big fights while we're here?"

"We're not supposed to get into trouble Babyface."

Both of them looked at each other before neither could take it anymore and they broke into smattering laughter. The mere thought of _not_ getting into a fight of some kind… ludicrous.

Seriously though, they had to at least try to be good. If they picked fights with Gym Leaders for no good reason before the tournament, Erika was going to try and kill them when complaints would inevitably be sent to her. Naruto wasn't a Gym Leader, but he was representing Kanto's side of things, so he was representing her too in a way since she was vouching for him.

He could screw up his own 'good' name all he wanted. Erika was a nice, responsible girl put in a position of leading a region full of very young Gym Leaders after a serious chain of events had rocked Kanto.

"Ah, that was good." Naruto said as they came upon shore and both jumped off of Hogohei onto land without allowing him to slow and stop first, "…Even I know we're not going four months without something weird happening." He remarked as he called Hogohei back into his Poke Ball.

"Well we'll worry about that when your mouth gets us into some kind of problem." Janine jested as they both looked around the town they had come to a stop in the river by, "You know, I've never actually been here in particular before. This was back when I used to travel with my father."

New Bark Town was a pretty fair-sized town, bigger than Pallet Town and not as impressive with the sheer natural beauty of its fields and nice little homes. It was just a place really, nothing too special about it one way or the other.

It was a fairly underwhelming walk through the streets as they seemed to be following a map that was situated in the Pokégear device on Naruto's wrist, "Uh, where'd you get that?" Janine asked offhandedly with a bit of apprehension in her voice.

"Ero-sennin bought it for me when he was replacing my clothes." Naruto said as he kept looking at the map screen, "It's some kind of new machine. Why?"

"No reason! Just wondering. I thought you'd stolen it from Silph Co. R&D in Saffron City or something, hahahaha… silly."

"The only reason I even went to Silph Co. when we were in Saffron was to get to you." Naruto sounded confused at why she would possibly think of something like that until it hit him in the face. She was a little too nervous and gave a really specific example of where he might have gotten his Pokégear, "Did you steal stuff from Silph?"

"What? No."

"Janine."

"I didn't steal _stuff_. Cross my heart Babyface."

Yeah, just like she didn't take the amber fossil piece that Kamisori was restored from. She could bat her eyelashes at him all she wanted, something was up, but he had nothing to prove it and it had been nine months ago, so it didn't matter really.

Eventually, per their map directions, the pair reached a big building that was supposedly the top landmark in town; the laboratory of Professor Elm. Oak had told them to go there first, and they didn't really have anything else on the docket other than wandering around, so this was something.

"Oak's lab looks cooler." Naruto pointed out as they stood across the street and looked at the facility. Instead of the open field behind the building like the Pallet Town lab, there was a vast forest that was entirely ungated, "Heh, free-range Pokémon."

"You're so dumb." Janine commented before crossing the street to head on inside, "Come on."

"Whatever. You know it was good." Throwing his hands up behind his neck lazily, Naruto followed along until a shock of red caught his eye from the side of the building, but the moment he turned to get a better look it disappeared behind the side, 'What the hell?'

With all of the stuff that could kill you right around the corner in the Safari Zone, Naruto had gotten used to never letting passing glances go if he saw something. He quickly ran over to the side of the lab only to see nothing there. Looking down, Naruto could see some footprints, but they didn't lead anywhere.

Out of instinct he looked up, but didn't see even a cloud in the sky. He still stared for a few moments before narrowing his eyes and huffing through his nose before putting his hands back behind his neck and heading into the laboratory.

He still had his nerves from Jiraiya's sadist-ass guerilla tactic training method of randomly ambushing and attacking him anytime, day or night.

XxX

A young man Naruto's age lay down on the roof of the laboratory with a Murkrow at his side. He had long red hair that reached past his shoulders and wore dark blue pants, black shoes and gloves, and a black long-sleeved, high-collared shirt with red fringe.

'That guy, he looked exactly like the description of the kid that-...' He thought to himself, clenching his hands into fists tightly as Naruto wandered away below inside. There wasn't any reason to hide in theory. Naruto had no idea who he was, or what he'd done to earn the ire of the young man hiding from him.

He didn't look that dangerous, but in that very same moment, Naruto had been hyperaware enough to nearly compromise him before he'd even made his move.

Why? How? He looked like a grinning fool the way he was around that girl with him, but the second something seemed to be off to him it was like a switch was flipped… and for a moment he then truly looked like the person that had broken the back of Team Rocket in Kanto and killed the head of the organization/Viridian City Gym Leader in Giovanni.

Green hadn't been blowing smoke when she talked about him.

"_Yeah, there are some interesting people I met in Kanto. Four other kids our age fought Team Rocket with me, and they're all strong. Two are Gym Leaders now, one's the Pokémon League Champion, and the other… well I don't know what he went to go do, but I'm positive he's the one that destroyed Viridian City Gym. Blue's sure of it."_

When the rubble of the Gym had been perused through before it was rebuilt, portions of it had been revealed to have been the site of a brutal battle. Bloodstains and the very earth itself had been split due to the most powerful technique possessed by Giovanni's Pokémon. But underneath everything Blue had managed to see a spiral marking on the floor that confused him until he brought it up to others.

Green had seen the very technique that created that particular mark so perfectly, used by the yellow-headed kid that he'd just seen.

Uzumaki Naruto.

'Sorry Green.' The boy angrily thought to himself, while shutting his eyes and facing the sky on his back, 'He probably is a friend of yours… but I can't let it go.'

XxX

(Inside of the Lab)

What a mess.

How could a person live in all of the clutter of books, papers, Poke Balls, and anything else you could imagine and function properly enough to have such a high station as the lead Pokémon mind in Johto?

"Well they say messiness is a sign of genius." Janine tried to reason as they stepped over and through all of the stuff all over the place. Cluttered shelves, large cases, desks… man, someone was disorganized, "This guy's got to be the smartest person in the world then. Hello?"

Her call elicited a response from upstairs, "Yes? Who's there?" A brainy-sounding male voice replied.

Both ninjas looked at each other before Naruto cupped his hands by his mouth and shouted up at the ceiling, "You don't know us. We're just looking around Johto, but Professor Oak said to come here first."

"Uh, would you mind coming back later? I'm kind of busy?"

By busy he must have meant distressed, because he sounded absolutely petrified about something or another. Naruto crept over to the staircase without making a sound and slowly made his way up with Janine at his back, only to get a sight he figured he wouldn't see again once he reached the top of the stairs.

As he peeked through the railing just over the floor of the upper level that was meant to be a living space for the professor of this lab and his family, Naruto saw five men in Team Rocket outfits holding three other people hostage. A man, a woman, and a child, "There. I sent whoever that was away."

"Good." One of the Rocket members said before motioning his head for one of the others to go downstairs and lock the door, "We wouldn't want anything else like what happened with your aide to take place would we Professor Elm?"

Professor Elm was a skinny, very unassuming-looking man with glasses and brown hair with a tuft on top that wore green slacks, brown shoes, a blue shirt and white lab coat. He kept his wife and child cradled as best he could, but there wasn't a single thing threatening about him.

Where Professor Oak had a strong air about him, there was nothing like that with this man.

He watched the one sent away descend the stairs before turning his eyes to the leader of the operation, "What do you want from me? I told you, the egg isn't with me! It's not here!"

"That's a shame." He said as he dropped a Poke Ball on the floor and released the creature within. A black dog with short pointed ears and a short tail, a red underbelly and snout, white bands around its ankles, white rib markings, and a white skull marking right on its forehead, "I wouldn't want this guy to latch onto your wife or son the way he did to that other guy… what's-his-name."

"Hey what are we talking about?"

Between two of the Team Rocket members, leaning over their shoulders was some blond kid in orange who proceeded to slam their heads together when they started to move after noticing him. Quick and violent, there was nothing mistakable about the sound of skulls clacking together.

The remaining members were beside themselves. This kid must have somehow taken out the person that went downstairs as well. Well there wouldn't be a lick of mercy shown no matter what after this.

"Houndour, Fire Fang!"

"Wing Attack!"

Before the Houndour could even begin to try and attack Naruto with bite utilizing a mouth full of flames, Janine's Golbat flew out of nowhere and knocked the dog Pokémon through the window of the upstairs lab, sending it flying away from the building. Good luck getting back up from that.

The remaining two members tried to go for their Poke Balls, but Naruto grabbed their wrists before they could let them fly, "I thought I was done with this." He said with a serious expression on his face, radiating loads of killing intent and forcing them to freeze up in sheer terror. With a spin and a throw, Naruto threw them over the railing and let them fall down the stairs in a heap where they didn't move again, "Team Rocket Grunts are still wimps."

"You sure it's not just because you got stronger?" Janine asked as she planted a foot on the two that had fallen first, "You chucked both of those guys at the same time." He didn't even try using any jutsu. That was all him.

"It's because most of them can't fight without their Pokémon! The only good ones were the bosses." Naruto emphasized before grinning sheepishly, "But yeah, that was cool wasn't it? I thought we finished off Team Rocket."

Janine just shook her head, not knowing what to tell Naruto. She had thought the exact same thing. They'd been plaguing Kanto for years before now, and they hadn't been seen in almost a year after the final battle in Saffron City. To think that they'd somehow wound up in Johto too? But nine months wasn't enough time for them to gain the strength to make moves in broad daylight.

And who the hell was leading them? Sabrina wasn't a member any longer as she was being watched like a hawk to make sure she was flying right, and all of the other former executives had been killed. Lt. Surge, Koga, and Giovanni were all dead.

Whatever. Thinking too hard about something that they didn't know the details on would only hurt their heads in the end. Hopefully it wasn't so ingrained in Johto's power structure that the Gym Leaders were involved like in Kanto.

"Are you okay?" Janine asked, helping Professor Elm and his family up, though all of them were visibly shaken.

Elm adjusted his glasses but was still somewhat quaking in his boots as he sent his wife and son out of the room, "I'm sorry to have tried to send you away when you were capable of that, but they had already killed my aide out back and were after something of mine."

"They wanted dad's Pokémon Egg!" The little boy informed them from around a corner where he'd been spying momentarily, "But he doesn't have it. He let someone else see it for a little while."

"An Egg?" Naruto asked as he was dragging the Team Rocket members out of the room to tie them up and dispose of them, "Pokémon have Eggs?" That didn't make much sense, most of them were mammals.

"You've never seen any?" Janine asked incredulously. He'd spent most of the year in the most natural preserve for Pokémon in Kanto, and he hadn't seen the results of Pokémon breeding? He should have stumbled upon some sort of breeding ground, "They should have been easy to find in the Safari Zone."

"Give me a break. There wasn't a lot of time to explore except for when I was doing the guerilla warfare thing with Ero-sennin." Naruto explained as he disappeared back down the stairs to throw the defeated Team Rocket Grunts out.

"What was the Egg supposed to be?" Janine asked, getting back on topic with Professor Elm, "Why did Team Rocket want it?"

Elm adjusted his glasses and sat down on a chair in the room, letting go of a tense breath he'd been holding for the duration of his hostage situation, "The Egg, it belonged to a pair of Pokémon that belonged to a Gym Leader. She left them in a Day Care Center and they made that it. Some calls went out, the information got to me, I asked the Gym Leader if I could study it for a bit before returning it to her… and this happened. I have to get it back to her."

As a professor the specialized in the evolution process of Pokémon he was often asked to study such things in all sorts of Pokémon, birth included.

The Egg of a pair of Pokémon that belonged to a Gym Leader of the Johto region. Depending on what it hatched to be it could have been something powerful. If there was something along the lines of another power play going on, that would be a hell of a reason to go after it.

"Where is it now then?" Janine asked, getting Elm to recoil into himself somewhat. She had to admit that it did sound suspicious. They had just somehow saved him from dire straits, and now they were getting interested in the entire reason behind the ransacking of his home and place of work.

"_You can trust them Elm."_

Naruto had reappeared from the stairs holding out his Pokégear where Professor Oak's voice came through loud and clear, "Professor Oak? You really know these kids?"

"_Yes, I can personally vouch for Naruto, and his friend is one of Kanto's Gym Leaders. An exceptional one if what I've been hearing about Fuchsia City Gym's turnaround is any indication. This is all very unsettling news, but if Naruto really wishes to help you wouldn't have anyone better on your side."_

"Aw, that's nice Professor." Naruto said with an embarrassed chuckle.

Elm held his Kanto colleague in high esteem. If he was willing to vouch for this boy and girl it was something to take note of. He had a high ability to see the character in other people, and they didn't seem to be bad people either. They were most assuredly strong after what he'd just seen.

"_It's not like you haven't earned it. You've both been exceptional in dealing with things like this in the past. If you have any questions Professor you can call me personally."_

"Alright then." Elm adjusted his glasses on his face with a rejuvenated look, "The Egg isn't with me. It's with a friend of mine on the road to Violet City that I trust. He wanted to see if there was something about its development that I might have missed before it was to be sent back to its original owner, but I fear that with the way things are going he'll be attacked if he tries to travel to Olivine City to return the egg."

That was a long trip to make even under normal circumstances, and his friend wasn't a fighter in the slightest.

But these two. They could make it there.

"Wow, you guys actually have police." Janine pointed out as she looked out the window at a pair of officers sprinting over to the tied up Team Rocket Grunts, "…They suck just as bad as they do in places that have them in Kanto though." They were most certainly late and ineffective when faced with actual threats the way they were in Kanto.

Professor Elm's mind was made up, "Listen, I need your help." He told the two of them, "Someone has to return the Egg to the Gym Leader in Olivine City. Could I ask the two of you to do it? You said you were travelling through Johto didn't you?"

"Sure!" Naruto responded casually, "Why not? Just tell us where it is we're going and we'll get it done-."

"-For a nominal fee." Janine butted in before Naruto could fully accept the task being presented to them, "Sorry to say, ninjas don't work for free. We'd be glad to help, but we'll need compensation for our services."

Naruto just stared at her with his mouth open. This man had just been kept in a hostage situation with his family and the life of a yet-to-be-born Gym Leader's Pokémon was more than likely in jeopardy here. At some point capitalism had to take a back seat to ethics.

…Right?

But Elm bit on it.

"How about I give you a Pokémon in exchange for doing this for me?"

Hook, line, and sinker.

As he ran downstairs to probably get together the intended payment for the pair of ninjas, Janine silently mouthed 'you're welcome' to Naruto, "You know damn well we don't need anything for this. It's the right thing to do."

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but I still don't like doing things for free." Janine argued in return. She was not about to become a free courier service, "The next time that I do something like this that I won't get paid for will be the first."

"AAAAHHH!"

Something else had to have been wrong for a grown man to scream like that, thus Naruto and Janine sprinted down to the lab portion of the building to find Professor Elm pacing around, seemingly beside himself.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no! This is terrible! Who would do something like this?" He ranted to himself in plain clear view of the ninja pair, "First my aide, and now this! Someone's stolen one of the rare Pokémon I planned on letting you choose from!"

So while Team Rocket was getting thrashed upstairs, someone had snuck in and stolen a Pokémon? Damn it, that was either good timing or someone had been casing the joint waiting for an opening like that.

…Or…

Naruto quickly cut his eyes to Janine who seemed offended at first before glaring right back at him for insinuating that she would have done it while everyone was confused.

"That's okay." Naruto set his hand on Professor Elm's shoulder to keep him from freaking out any further, "_WE_ didn't need anything like that anyway." HE said, emphasizing the 'we' and getting a pulled down eyelid and a raspberry from Janine in return, "What did they take? We'll keep an eye out and do something if we can?"

"It was a Totodile?"

"A what?"

Professor Elm picked up a book while Naruto tried to peruse through his Pokédex to find anything on that particular Pokémon. If he didn't see it in the Safari Zone, something was up. Eventually he was shown a picture of a blue, bipedal, spirited-looking crocodile of a Pokémon.

He'd never seen one of those.

"Johto has some species of Pokémon that Kanto doesn't have and the same goes in reverse." Janine said to Naruto who while he was obviously more well informed on Pokémon was still not really from around there, "That big mountain between the regions is more than just the border Babyface."

"Alright." Naruto said, punching into his palm, "Let's get started then. We've got a lot to do already and we just got here."

Four months to go before the tournament.

There wasn't any way that most of this stuff would get grossly out of hand the way things did back in Kanto right? How much weird stuff could Johto have that Kanto didn't prepare him for in advance already?

* * *

><p>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<p>

Ranbouen (Arcanine): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire), ExtremeSpeed (Normal), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Electric).

Hogohei (Cloyster): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal), Spike Cannon (Normal), Surf (Water).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting), Revenge (Fighting), Substitute (Normal), Hi Jump Kick (Fighting), Blaze Kick (Fire).

Sazakumoru (Marowak): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock), Swords Dance (Normal), Thrash (Normal), Earthquake (Ground), Bone Rush (Ground), Return (Normal).

Shujinken (Misdreavus): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Double Team (Normal), Shadow Ball (Ghost), Pain Split (Normal), Thunderbolt (Electric).

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug), Flash (Normal), Sucker Punch (Dark), Agility (Normal), Poison Jab (Poison).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison), Sludge Bomb (Poison), Curse (Ghost), Flamethrower (Fire), Strength (Normal).

Golbat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying), Wing Attack (Flying), Aerial Ace (Flying), Double Team (Normal), Haze (Ice), Venoshock (Poison), Fly (Flying).

Venomoth: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal), Silver Wind (Bug), Gust (Flying), Poison Fang (Poison).

Forretress: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Protect (Normal), Selfdestruct (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Take Down (Normal), Gyro Ball (Steel), Bide (Normal), Mirror Shot (Steel), Iron Defense (Steel), Flash Cannon (Steel).

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, let's light this candle. It's time for the Johto half of the story, and I'm excited about it. When this starts to pick up, it'll really have picked up, so just sit tight and come along with me as we work our way through this.<strong>

**Later. I'm off to go place some bets on the NBA Playoffs and UFC on Fox.**

**Kenchi out.**


	20. New Place, New Problems

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. Hey, what's a Pokémon Master? What are its requirements and expectations? What are its perks? Do you apply for it with paperwork? Is it an official title recognized by all like 'League Champion' or 'Iron Chef', or is it a imaginary title given to you and originally coined by yourself like the 'Sauce Boss' or the 'Shaman of Sexy'? Is there a governing body that can bestow the title of Pokémon Master upon you?

If the last thing is true, fuck being a Pokémon Master. If you're aiming for the top you want to be the guy that names who gets to be a Pokémon Master. That's where it's really at.

What would you call that though?

I've gotten way off track now, and I'm ashamed of myself for letting my train of thought wander so far.

**Chapter 20: New Place, New Problems**

* * *

><p>Ranbouen was the fastest land ride on the continent, at least until the Magnet Train was completed.<p>

After setting out from New Bark Town, Naruto and Janine immediately travelled with a task in mind; to reach the house of the man that had the Pokémon Egg they were meant to transport to Olivine City.

"You see?" Janine said with a smile as she clutched to Naruto tightly for safety while they rode, "You were having such a good time training that Pokémon from Professor Elm. You totally wanted it. Why else would you have taken it?"

"Because it was nice." Naruto replied, hiding a red face from the kunoichi upon being called out on how much he actually wanted one of the choices of Pokémon that Professor Elm had been offering, "And Ero-sennin's still got Kamisori so I needed a sixth to round out my team!"

How he was going to 'round out' his team with a very inexperienced, yet-to-be-battle-tested Pokémon remained to be seen, but that was his excuse and he was sticking to it.

It was a relatively short trip to the next town of Cherrygrove City, just a day away, but that wasn't their end destination. Their intended location sat a bit farther along the routes to pick up the Pokémon Egg that they'd been dispatched to retrieve and return to its original owner from Olivine City, wherever that was.

So basically; road trip, but with a purpose.

The two of them were quiet other than occasional observations and quips about the things that they would pass in the course of their travelling, but they seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the trip in one another's presence.

There was a sparkle in Janine's eyes that she hadn't had in quite a while. Defeating roving challengers looking for a Soul Badge just wasn't the same as what she'd been doing before, but it wasn't the travel that she liked because she hadn't been having any fun with that until she met Naruto. It was him. God help her, she'd never say that to him lest she wind up sending his ego into the stratosphere, but she could admit it to herself. Hell, thumb-wrestling with Naruto would probably be five times more fun than it would be with anyone else.

In return, Naruto was having a little bit of trouble when it came to the proximity that Janine had with him. She had her arms wrapped tightly around his torso to hold on and her body was fitted _perfectly_ against him from behind. She rode like that nine months ago, but there was a difference between Naruto and Janine from nine months ago and Naruto and Janine from right then, physically and mentally.

First of all, Naruto hadn't even been around a human girl in nine months. Second of all, he had to read back Jiraiya's drafts on the two new books he'd been planning to write. One of them was a continuation of the common Icha Icha series, the other was going to be a spin-off chronicling the things that they'd seen and done in Kanto… and since they were Jiraiya books they had to come with gratuitous sex scenes.

He'd done a lot of reading as Jiraiya kept redoing his own work and making Naruto preliminary edit it.

Added onto the fact that Janine's body had more than begun to fill out fairly well, he never had much of a chance.

"You feeling alright Babyface?" Naruto heard Janine ask from behind him.

"Huh?" The Konoha-born blond snapped out of his thoughts in response, "Yeah. Just great. Why?"

"Well you felt really tense until I said something, and then you shivered really hard one good time just now."

"Uh…" He needed a distraction, and luckily one came up, "Hey look. Town." Thank goodness. He didn't want to have to get into just why he'd been spacing out for the last few minutes, "Should we stop?"

Janine shrugged and grabbed Naruto's Pokégear-clad wrist to bring up the map programmed into it, "I think we should, even if it's just for a quick break. New Bark Town to Cherrygrove City on Route 29 takes a day at Ranbouen's speed, but taking Route 30 and 31 is a much longer trek. So I think we should leg it ourselves for that part."

Right. Naruto didn't want to run his Arcanine ragged after all. They could probably take the next leg of the trip on foot anyway to give him a better rest. From the looks of that map, the way to the next town was one hell of a trudge and abusing their preferred method of speedy transportation probably wouldn't serve them very well in the long run when they'd actually need to move quickly.

After entering the city limits, Naruto drew Ranbouen to a stop and pressed his forehead gratefully against his original Pokémon's own, "Thanks for the hard work Ranbouen. You're the man, err… dog." Was he a dog anymore technically after evolving? That required some looking into.

Janine climbed off of Ranbouen's back and looked around at what she could see of Cherrygrove while Naruto continued lavishing praise onto the extremely large and happy canine for his use in getting them along quickly.

Cherrygrove City wasn't a very large place at all, and from where they were she could see that there was an outlet that probably led to the ocean, "Johto's such a nice region." The Fuchsia City kunoichi commented as she stretched her arms above her head and arched her back, "What do you think Babyface?"

By now, Naruto had returned Ranbouen into his Poke Ball and was busy looking at the water along with her, "Eh, it isn't like Hi no Kuni. Too many mountains for that. But it's way foresty-er than Kanto was. Kanto had a lot of open fields, so I'm liking Johto so far."

"Foresty and whatever you said added onto it isn't a word."

"It is now."

The two of them just sat down on the rocky shore of the beach and watched the water during a short break. It was the middle of the day, with water rolling in and out and lightly splashing up into the air.

This was nice.

The whole trip had been nice actually. They had legitimately missed one another over the majority of the last year.

"So this friend of Professor Elm's that we're getting the egg from…" Naruto said, trying to drum up some conversation to keep things from getting too sappy, "…What kind of person is called Mr. Pokémon?"

"It's probably a nickname." Janine replied, "It's a weird nickname, but if that's what he wants to be called, that's his business. After meeting a bunch of kids named after colors, are you really going to complain about what someone else wants to be called?"

Eh, she had a point. By now, after the kids he'd met, calling someone's name weird had gone out the window a long time ago.

"I'll complain about what you call me though." Naruto squinted his eyes in his female companion's direction, catching sight of her growing Cheshire smile, "Seriously, what's with the 'Babyface' thing?"

Janine reached out and pinched his cheek, "Aw, come on. Just look at those cheeks. Adorable!" She laughed a bit when he turned his face out of her touch, "Oh come on. You can get as big and solid as you want to, training your butt off, but those are there to stay."

"S'not my fault."

"Don't be that way. I love 'em." Her own cheeks heated up at her own sudden candid admission. Thankfully, Naruto was still pouting with his gaze directed away for her for dramatic effect so she had a chance to fight it back down in quick order. That was almost a little too frank, 'Babyface can't be anything other than my best friend. He isn't staying here, so if we ever did… you know. It would just end up with one of us getting hurt.'

Speaking of getting hurt…

Over the reflection of the water, Janine and Naruto saw a Murkrow and looked up to see it flying rather with a rather focused look on its face for a wild Pokémon, especially since it was coming right at them.

…Very fast.

"Those don't show up around the ocean." Janine said, having seen her fair share of the crow Pokémon in her life. They liked darker places like forests and swamps. Even city interiors were better places to find them than on a beach, "You don't think-."

"I don't know." Naruto said, getting up from where they were sitting, prepared to jump off of the beachside rock to deal with the incoming bird. The only thing was that his body wouldn't get down to a more advantageous area, "What the-?" From their sight of Murkrow, a spectral outline of five ethereal eyes glaring at them, "Why the hell won't I move?"

It was like a genjutsu persuading him mentally to refrain from leaving.

"That's Mean Look!" Janine told him, pulling a shuriken with a shrunken Poke Ball in the middle circle of the weapon, "Golbat-!"

"Thief!"

Before she could throw it, a dark blur rushed past the two of them and their position, pilfering Janine's Poke Ball weapon and cutting into the guard on her forearm at the same time, 'What a sharp attack!'

Following it with their eyes, it came to a stop, revealing itself to be a black, bipedal, weasel with sharp claws on its front and black paws, a yellow jewel marking on its chest and forehead, and three red feather-looking appendages coming from its lower back and its left ear.

It stood smirking near a young man their age with red hair and an extremely serious look on his face as its Pokémon held Janine's Poke Ball in its claws, "Tch, I didn't think it'd be that easy to trap the man that took down Team Rocket. And aren't you a Gym Leader?"

The first smartass rebuttal from Naruto was cut off by both him and Janine having to use the limited space available to them to duck out of the way of a dangerous Wing Attack from the circling Murkrow, "Who the hell are you?" Naruto asked after dodging the first attack.

"It doesn't matter who I am." The red-haired young man said, raising his hand to issue another command, "Murkrow, don't miss this time! They can't retreat! Night Shade!"

Who needed to retreat though when one could fight?

"Hogohei, Ice Shard!"

Lacking distance ninjutsu and having seen how fast the enemy's Pokémon could swipe weaponry from them, he wasn't going to draw his own. Thus, Naruto summoned his Cloyster to do double duty of defending them and fighting off their attacker.

The massive shelled creature was quick to fire multiple jagged chunks of ice from its opening like a machine gun, too fast for Murkrow to be prepared to try and dodge, or before it could fire its own attack according to its trainer's orders.

After being shot and peppered with Ice Shard it crashed into the shallow water by the beach and didn't get back up.

"What?" The red-haired boy was in complete shock, 'One attack? But I prepared for this for most of the year! How could Murkrow lose after all of the training we did! He should be at least around a Gym Leader Pokémon's strength!'

But there was a discrepancy there. While his Murkrow might have been powerful with technique and in maturity, he hadn't fought many enemies that were as powerful as his apparent target was, nor someone that had been in as many life-or-death fights, both on his own and with his Pokémon.

He was used to fighting trainers in battles around Kanto and Johto, but he hadn't had any deathmatches against people that knew how to fight them.

'Come on, Ero-sennin taught you how to deal with this!' Naruto thought to himself, taking advantage of the panic and clasping his hands together in a ram seal to manipulate the chakra inside of his body more sharply and stop it-, " Kai!" -before starting it and expelling it forcefully.

The red-haired boy heard Naruto shout and wondered what that was all about when he saw Naruto jump off of the rock he had been on, into the air right at him with an angry look on his face, "You can't just do that with Mean Look!" He yelled back at Naruto, "Sneasel, Metal Claw!"

The boy jumped as far away from Naruto's descent as he could in one move. If even half of the stories circulating about what he could do were true, it was in his best interests to stay as far away as he could. He managed to land on another rock with a good view of what was to come in the battle.

Timing Naruto's landing, Sneasel struck out with a shining, lustrous claw, nothing but bad intentions behind it. Sneasel was one of the quickest Pokémon you could find, and it had been trained with that in mind. Speedy, sharp attacks mean to cut and stab quickly were its forte.

It seemed as if it would land, but before it hit Naruto he disappeared in a puff of smoke and the claw smashed off of the shell of Naruto's Cloyster, that had somehow made it over there in time to Protect him.

This was absurd. He didn't know what he'd been expecting out of Uzumaki Naruto, but the way the blond was fighting right then wasn't it.

Naruto landed on the ground, grinning while holding up the shuriken rigged with the Poke Ball that Sneasel had stolen from Janine at the outset of the ambush, "I'm not that cocky with my taijutsu to fight a Pokémon with four knives on its arms and legs." He'd had that Kawarimi prepared with Hogohei the entire time, "I just wanted this back." He said, wagging the shuriken in the air.

"I'm still kind of mad though!" Janine said from her place on the rock. She wasn't privy to the knowledge of overcoming mental attacks, thus she was stuck there for the time being. That didn't mean her Pokémon were though, "Venomoth, Gust!"

'When did she release a Pokémon?' It didn't take long for the boy to hear the sound of wind kicking up, forcing him to take cover behind one of the large rocks on the beach to keep from being blown away by the powerful attack that was stripping the location of its sand, 'So this is the power of a Gym Leader.'

He was outmatched and he knew it. Sneasel was still with him, but against two Gym Leader level trainers and their Pokémon this was seeming like a more impossible task than it first did. His entire plan revolved around trapping Naruto on the rock with Mean Look, an attack that would mentally confuse him into refusing to retreat or give up ground in combat. There he would be an easy target for anything and everything.

But he defeated his Murkrow with a speedy Ice Shard attack, and once he managed to break the hold Mean Look had on him, things started going downhill in a hurry.

"Faint Attack." He directed to his Sneasel under his breath to keep from being heard.

With Naruto he was sitting by and anticipating the counterattack from their assailant, knowing full well that the tables had turned, "Alright, I don't even know who you are. If you're pissed off at me it'd be cool to know why… or your name or something. That'd be great."

From a blind spot, somehow Sneasel had gotten a killing angle on Naruto with its claws poised to strike, 'That thing is faster than me and it isn't even using Agility or Quick Attack or anything!'

He ducked and felt the tips of his hair get cut from the claw before he heard the kid call out another attack, "Surf!"

Shit.

From the oceans a large, swelling wave raised and crashed their way, covering more of the beach than they could escape perpendicular to. Standing on the top of the wave, directing it with its abilities, was a blue little bipedal crocodile with red spines.

Wait. Was that the fucking Totodile from Elm's Pokémon Lab? How the hell did it know Surf already?

It had clearly just been taught the move as it wasn't as strong as the attack would have been if Hogohei had done it. Hogohei probably could have flooded a small village with his Surf.

Janine was safe on the high rock she was stuck on top of, and sighed in relief when she saw Naruto defend himself with Hogohei's Protect, "Fast moves Babyface." The Totodile had been returned to its Poke Ball as the person that had initiated the attack on them was flying away holding onto the feet of his revived Murkrow. He was already well on his way out of there, "Hey! Babyface, give me Golbat back!"

"Kind of fighting the current right now 'Nina!" Naruto said, standing strong against the Surf wave behind Hogohei, "I can't really throw a shuriken at you anyway without cutting your hands up!"

While flying away, looking at his two Poke Balls that contained his Totodile and Sneasel, the boy could only grit his teeth in aggravation at being forced to retreat, 'I need more fighting experience to match him. I don't have a chance otherwise. He killed my father after all…' "You killed my father so remember my name Uzumaki, because I'm going to pay you back! My name is Silver, and I'm the man that'll kill you!"

"Aww, you hear that Babyface? You've got a fan." Janine jested. But in all seriousness, that guy was aggressive as hell. He came with a plan that had the chance of working if not for the intangible variable of Naruto's magic ninja crap, and his attacking was with purpose and organization.

He was smart enough to make sure that Naruto never got anywhere near him and was physically adept enough to keep it from happening, allowing him to keep Naruto from dictating the total pace of the battle, so he knew to an extent what he was getting into. Hearing rumors and coming head-to-head with the genuine article was clearly more than he had been anticipating.

And he was smart enough to leave when he knew full well that his element of surprise had worn off. This guy wasn't willing to push his luck.

'This guy, I don't want to say it, but he might actually be dangerous.' The lavender-clad Pokémon kunoichi thought to herself as she returned Venomoth back to her Poke Ball.

She wanted to pull the 'she was a Gym Leader' card to maintain full confidence against thinking that someone they'd never heard of could be a threat to them, but refrained from doing so because it wasn't smart. Once upon a time Red, Blue, Green, as well as Naruto and herself were unknowns as well, and look what they had done.

Nine months later, one was now the Champion (Red), two others were Gym Leaders (Janine and Blue), another was drifting around probably still ripping people off (Green), and the last was something of an urban legend in Kanto (Naruto).

On the beach, Naruto spat out a mouthful of water and returned Hogohei to his Poke Ball, seeing that Janine's Mean Look imposed imprisonment on the rock had vanished with the departure of Silver's Murkrow.

"He said I killed his dad." Naruto asked aloud, thinking to himself. He hadn't killed that many to be honest, "…I don't remember killing anybody old enough to have a fourteen year-old kid except for that fight at Viridian City Gym with-."

-Giovanni.

Holy crap, that was Giovanni's kid?

Giovanni's kid with a grudge.

"So you _were _the one that destroyed the Viridian City Gym." Janine said, feeling vindicated at actually having known full well without being told who was partly responsible for all of that destruction. There was technically a new minor fault line in Viridian City because of that battle, and the fallout from the physical damage that the fight created ran into the city itself, though Naruto didn't pay too much attention to it due to his injuries in the aftermath, "Is Giovanni really dead? Why would you kill him?"

Gym Leader battles got intense, but to kill a Gym Leader in the middle of one…

"Giovanni was the leader of Team Rocket." Naruto said, alarming Janine who clearly had not been privy to that bit of information beforehand. None of the Kanto Gym Leaders had been. They hadn't been able to pin down why exactly he'd vanished into thin air after his Gym was destroyed.

Clearly he hadn't been able to relay that to anyone any sooner, like when it would have been pertinent to know, because Jiraiya had immediately tossed him into the Safari Zone for nine months right after the battle had ended.

Janine was stunned, as she had figured that the Team Rocket Triad that they'd defeated were the bosses. As the last surviving top brass member that had gone back to Gym Leader status, Sabrina had never let on that was another person ahead of them in the pecking order.

She just assured them that Team Rocket's leadership was dead, and she had no interest in trying to maintain the group. There were important upheavals in regional stability to take care of as a direct result of their actions, and all criminal activities from the Team Rocket end of things had ceased entirely after the Saffron City battle, so they left it alone. Nothing had come up since to make anyone think that there was an overlord.

Not really knowing what to say past the abject shock she felt, Janine just let Naruto lead her off of the rock and back through the streets of Cherrygrove City to continue on with their trip, "Come on. I'll tell you about the fight on the way." He said, getting a silent nod of consent from her, "…We've got to call Elm too and tell him what happened to that Totodile."

This crap seemed kind of familiar, what with the Pokémon being pilfered from a Pokémon Lab and being used against him in a fight soon thereafter.

XxX

(A Short Time Later – With Silver – Skies of Johto)

Murkrow had flown them as far as it could away from Cherrygrove City as fast as it could after the ill-fated battle with Naruto and Janine. He didn't think he really could have beaten both of them at once, but upon seeing Naruto for the first time, his sense of reason was overridden. He had to battle him, to try and see what he had to prepare for.

Sneasel was his very first Pokémon that he'd had since he was a child, and it had been through every shred of training that he'd been through to be a Pokémon Trainer. He knew for certain that Sneasel could have continued to battle at a high level, but he didn't want to run the risk of losing and having to rely on his injured Murkrow and a brand new Totodile that he'd stolen, even if he did manage to teach it Surf in the short time he'd had it.

Silver felt Murkrow jerk in the air, still reeling from the nasty attack from the Cloyster, "Descend." They were far enough away for him to huff it on foot from there. Cherrygrove wasn't anywhere in sight at that point. According to the map on his Poke Gear, they were somewhere around Route 32, so they were a good distance away.

As his feet hit the ground, he returned his exhausted flying Pokémon to its ball, staring at it before decreasing its size and pocketing it, "Now I know what I'm up against, and where I need to be."

Training was going to be doubled, and he needed to fight more true battles to prepare for the next time he confronted that bastard. Totodile was going to be getting its nose put to the grindstone to catch up to even Murkrow and later Sneasel in strength.

Even with powering his Pokémon up, even though as far as fighting went he'd had it ground into his own head with the childhood he'd had, he couldn't beat Naruto. Not yet, and he wouldn't be getting any weaker anytime soon.

There had to be some way for him to defeat that guy without a shadow of a doubt. He just had to find it.

Silver searched forever to find his father, and when he finally did he found out that Naruto had killed him. He'd waited for years and years, and broke away from a kidnapping overlord to look for him only to find that out.

Compared to that, he could take his time and prepare what he needed to do in order to get the job done.

XxX

(With Naruto – A Short Time Later – Route 30)

It had been a pretty long day moving past Cherrygrove City after the skirmish they had fought against the red-haired boy Silver. Both Naruto and Janine felt that they needed to be reconditioned to the spontaneity of things that could happen at any time in the midst of travelling.

Naruto was forced to remember that even though there weren't any wars or enemy ninjas, that didn't make the Pokémon Continent a place that wasn't wildly dangerous. Even though he wasn't in the Safari Zone any longer, Pokémon trained by humans were oftentimes more threatening than their wild counterparts.

In the end though, after a largely uneventful trek miles farther they made it to a lone house just off of the beaten path in a clearing behind the trees lining the trail. It was a house nestled nicely right against a steep incline in the nearby more mountainous terrain that one would find in Johto as opposed to Kanto.

So this was Mr. Pokémon's house. A simple little one-story place with modest fencing surrounding it.

They were expecting something a little bit more flamboyant for the home of a man that had a nickname like that.

"Huh." Naruto said as they reached the front door and knocked, "So maybe this guy'll be normal or something." Not that he really knew what normal was any more.

It took a second, but the door opened to reveal an old man with grey hair and a bushy mustache, shorter than Naruto with a suit and a hat as his attire. He regarded the two youths oddly, standing behind the door as he spoke to them, "Y-Yes?"

"Professor Elm sent us." Janine said with a disengaging smile. The old guy was clearly on pins and needles, probably because he'd been called about what happened in New Bark Town by now. There wasn't any use in scaring him, "We're meant to get the Pokémon Egg from you and return it to its owner in Olivine City."

"How can I know you're who you say you are?"

In response, Naruto held up a Poke Ball and threw it, releasing the creature inside.

In the field behind them, a small four-legged, pale green Pokémon with big red eyes, buds surrounding its neck, and a large leaf on top of its head stood, groggily looking around before resting its eyes on Naruto and yawning.

"Well, Professor Elm gave me a Chikorita for saving him and his family." Naruto said with a shrug, "This is Chienha (Lazy Leaf)." To prove the point of the little grass Pokémon's name, she just lay down in the field and shut her eyes with a content smile on her face, "…You know I just got her, but I think she might be a lot like someone I know back home."

A few differences though. Naruto had gotten in some work with Chienha before getting to Cherrygrove City and after leaving it to give her a few wild Pokémon battles and show her how things would go on his team. While she wasn't very eager to battle, she was fiercely cold and precise in her attacks when she fought. It was as if she chose to battle in a way that would get the issue over with quickly so she could go back to doing nothing. Her quickest path was straight through something instead of trying to avoid it altogether.

Meh, she'd be okay as a member of his team. New or not, she'd get along with the others just fine. It wasn't as if she were mean.

Either way, that was enough to convince the man behind the door. Such Pokémon were rare, and the only known way to get one anywhere in that area of Johto was through Elm. Opening the door the entire way, Mr. Pokémon regarded both of his guests with excitement, "Oh, well I didn't know much about the kind of Pokémon that's supposed to hatch from this Egg, so I asked Professor Elm to let me see it before he sent it back to the person that it came from! If he hadn't called me I would have lost track of time!"

Naruto went out into the field to go and spend some time working with Chienha while they had another down moment to do so. Janine was markedly better dealing in first meetings with people than he was, so she had basically let him go and do his own thing in the meantime while she did the diplomatic work, "Well Professor Elm says it's supposed to go back to Olivine City."

"Of course, of course. Yes, come in." Mr. Pokémon said, quickly pulling her inside, "I have to say, after finding out that Team Rocket still existed well enough to attack Professor Elm, I figured that they would come after me shortly.

Upon entering, Janine's sight was bombarded by multitudes of knickknacks and items of questionable use and novelty from all over the continent. Coins, sketches, magazines of foreign publication companies… wow, this guy had been all over the place.

It was all sort of junk though. Even if she was still back in her previous phase of stealing interesting or valuable things the way she used to until she'd fought Team Rocket and become a Gym Leader, she wouldn't have taken anything from Mr. Pokémon's house.

She didn't even think he owned any Pokémon.

"I've made a discovery!" Mr. Pokémon called out from his back room, much to the kunoichi's surprise, "Would you like to hear what I've found out about Pokémon Eggs?"

This person made a discovery? Wow, what in the world could it be?

Coming back, he handed Janine a solid white egg with sparse red and blue patterns. She held it in her hands and turned it around to check it out. It was the size of a person's head, 'This is probably going to be really uncomfortable to carry around all the way to Olivine City, and Golbat isn't strong enough to Fly people that far.' But maybe they could come up with something that would keep the Egg safe and get it there without having to do the whole trip on foot, "So what did you come up with?"

Whatever it was, he seemed to be excited about it, "I've found out that you can tell what kind of Pokémon the Egg will hatch from its patterns on the shell!"

…

…That was it?

"That's… great." Janine said, feigning surprise at the discovery, 'Everybody that's seen more than one Egg already kind of knew that.' Maybe since it was something that probably wasn't documented yet, he figured it was a discovery. Leaving things like that without saying probably did more harm than good if things like this, "Are you sure Professor Elm didn't already publish that? He specializes in Pokémon evolution doesn't he?"

Apparently that thought had indeed slipped his mind when he'd received the Egg to observe. Immediately he ran into the back room and within thirty seconds a loud yell of, "No!" sounded out through the house, followed by the sound of overdramatic crying.

At that point, Janine just backed slowly out of the house holding the Egg in her arms. She saw an incubator case on a desk nearby with Professor Elm's name on it and took it with her to hold the Egg safely inside of until it hatched, "Okay. Well thank you for taking care of it." No response in exchange for Mr. Pokémon's sobbing about how he could have possibly made that kind of mistake, "Naruto and I will call Professor Elm and tell him how much help you were, so… thanks again."

Thank goodness that was over. And upon getting outside she saw that instead of sparring with Chienha or training her techniques, Naruto was just sitting down in the grass with her, an extremely relaxed, content smile on his face. Strange for someone usually so active

What was that amazingly comfortable aroma in the air though? It was making her feel relaxed too.

"I put her through some paces and I think Chienha knows Sweet Scent." Naruto pointed out lucidly, trying to slowly stand back up, "And she uses it on herself a lot." That would explain why she was so mellow more often than not.

"Alright." Janine said as Naruto returned Chienha to her Poke Ball. She showed him the Egg that they'd been tasked with taking to Olivine City, "Well carrying this thing around isn't going to be the nicest thing I've ever done. And it's a living thing, so putting it in that void you call a sealing scroll is out of the question. So I guess Violet City it is then."

"Why?"

"Because there's someone there than can help us get the Egg there fast." Janine admitted before frowning thoroughly, "…I'm not really a big fan of him though."

Uh-oh. Was this like how Misty wasn't a big fan of her either back when Naruto had first travelled with her through Cerulean City? That almost ended up being a messy situation. She did say that she'd been in Johto before with her father, so there was a matter of just how well one of those campaigns had gone in the past.

"Did you steal from him or something?" Naruto asked, beginning to feel his calm aromatherapy-induced sense of laziness fade away and his normal sense of over enthusiasm and energy return full-force in Chienha's absence.

While it was understandable as to how that could have been the first conclusion he managed to arrive at, it couldn't have been further from being the case, "No, this is back before dad really started trying to train me to take his place. Back when he was still a regular Gym Leader he used to take part in the older regional Gym Leader Tournaments like the one we're going to do in a few months."

After everything that had happened in the past, it was hard to consider that Koga had been a Gym Leader not bent on gaining power at all costs and imposing his will through Team Rocket over the continent. But everyone's dark side started from somewhere.

Oh well. Naruto was sure that even if Janine didn't like the person in Violet City they were going to see, if it was her idea to go and see him in the first place she could suck it up and get what was needed to be done finished.

Hopefully.

XxX

(That Night – With Jiraiya – Tohjo Falls)

Through the use of Naruto's Aerodactyl, Jiraiya was able to quickly make his way around the areas of the Johto/Kanto border trying to find some clue about what he was supposed to be looking for. Other than going straight over Mt. Silver though, which would have been colder than hell and none too safe for a prehistoric Pokemon, he went through the unofficial borderline point, a cave through the southernmost point of the Mt. Silver mountain range that separated the two regions.

Johto supposedly had a legendary Pokémon noted for being powerful enough to cause storms that could last well over 40 days just from flapping its wings. This was something that fell well in line with Minato's stories and reports on the Pokémon Continent.

Now if only he knew where to really get started.

"Haah!" Jiraiya groaned, sitting down by the fire that he'd started inside of the cave by the massive waterfall inside of it. In the water nearby was his Lapras with his Jynx nearby watching over it. Sitting across from him just staring at the food that was being cooked over the flame was the borrowed Aerodactyl Kamisori, "Just wait for a few more minutes. The food needs some time to cook you know."

Kamisori just spared Jiraiya half a glance before screeching at him and returning to staring at the meat.

"…You don't care if it's cooked or not do you?" Jiraiya said, rolling his eyes as he grabbed the stick that had been holding the meat out of the fire, "Here, go nuts." Without needing anymore prompting, the ancient carnivorous Pokémon bit off the poultry on the stick, taking a good portion of the stick with it, "You know you ate the-." Kamisori then spat the remnants of the stick in the fire and let out another loud screech, "-Nevermind."

Why couldn't Naruto catch more mellow Pokémon like he did? Jynx and Lapras were two Pokémon more to his speed than he could have possibly imagined. Then again, he supposed that if Naruto didn't have Pokémon with a laundry list of personality quirks it just wouldn't be appropriate.

And now the damn thing was flying around the wide open cave, happily screeching like it had just won the lottery. What the fuck? The only thing he did was give it a whole bird to eat. Of course he was going to get that much. Kamisori was huge.

Okay, in hindsight he had to admit that attitude was kind of infectious.

Suddenly Kamisori landed down by Jiraiya again and had his eyes set firmly on the way that led to the Johto-side exit, a sign that he was alert for some reason. Jiraiya palmed a kunai in his palm, hidden from plain sight just in case.

A young man in his late twenties or early thirties walked into plain sight with a small smile on his face. He had spiky red hair and his outfit consisted of imperial black and red clothes and boots, as well as a black cape with a red interior. This person had a flair for the flashy clothes as well. A man after Jiraiya's own heart in that regard.

"Someone else passing through I see." The young man said upon seeing Jiraiya and his gathering of Pokémon, "Are you going to Kanto or Johto?"

Well no matter. Even if this person was a threat, it wasn't like Jiraiya wasn't ready for a fight. In the meantime he could be cordial. There was nothing like springing the fact that he was already prepared to handle an attack on someone looking to take his head.

After all, as a good ninja it was a necessity to have kind words for every person you met.

…As well as a plan to kill them.

"I'm heading to Johto." Jiraiya said with a big grin, "Never been there before actually, and I've got no idea what I'm looking for. Would you like to take a rest here for a bit? It's getting late out there."

"Sure." The young man said, sitting on a stone near Jiraiya, "My name is Lance." He said, extending his hand for Jiraiya to shake.

'Hmm, this guy might be smart or just friendly.' Jiraiya shoved the kunai he had been palming up into his sleeve to hide further for the time being before he grabbed Lance's hand in a hearty shake of greeting, 'I feel a lot of power coming from him though. More than any person that I've met on this continent thus far, and not by a little.' "Jiraiya. Nice to meet you kid."

Lance smiled and nodded before looking over and up at Kamisori who was still regarding him suspiciously, "This is a very well-trained Aerodactyl. Normally they're extremely hard to handle and very aggressive to others, even in the presence of their trainers." He said, making eye contact with the Pokémon.

"Well I didn't train him." Jiraiya admitted, reaching out a hand to pat Kamisori's belly, "My student did. I'm just borrowing him to travel around for a little while. I'm supposed to meet back up with him Johto, whenever I find him." He then looked around before slyly leaning in, "Say… you came from that direction. Tell me, are the ladies in Johto fine?"

"Sorry, but I'm not much of an expert on that." Lance said, a bit sheepish in his admittance to this, "You know, most people still don't take handling a potentially violent Pokémon this easily."

"He's not that bad." Jiraiya assured him, "My boy's got him well behaved enough that he didn't go for your throat when he thought you were trying to get the drop on us."

"Oh he looks like he isn't." Lance said, maintaining eye contact with Kamisori for a bit longer before looking back at Jiraiya again, "But all the same, Pokémon with dragon-type characteristics are very special. Extremely powerful and hard to control. Your student must be quite something."

A frown came to Jiraiya's face. Sure, Pokémon were interesting and everything, but to him there wasn't anything more intriguing than a woman! Add another notch to the oddity of this meeting, "Most people simply aren't used to the wild, the weird, and the exotic!" Jiraiya exclaimed, "At least, not the way that the legendarily sexy sage of a land far away such as myself is! And my student, expect nothing less from one trained by the all-powerful Jiraiya!"

No matter how he seemed to try and throw Lance off with his actions, the man just seemed more entertained by his attitude than anything else. He wasn't disengaged at all by any of Jiraiya's weirdness.

"So you said you didn't know what you were looking for in Johto." Lance said, trying to get things back to a semi-normal piece of conversation, "Anything I can help fill in the blanks on? I've been all over both regions."

With that, Jiraiya told him of the mythical Pokémon that could create storms that could last a fortnight just by flapping its wings. If this guy was coming from Johto he'd more than likely heard several different versions of the same story by now. It was something that pretty much every person that even owned a Pokémon in Johto knew of to some extent. It wasn't like it was some big national secret or anything.

As he spoke, Jiraiya noticed no change in Lance's expression at all. Clearly he had heard this already, as had been expected.

At the end, Lance held up a hand to cut Jiraiya off somewhat politely, "I definitely think I know what you're talking about. You're referring to the 'Guardian of the Seas' that goes by the name of Lugia."

Lugia. What a strange name for a Pokémon.

Whatever. Lance was on a roll now, and he wasn't going to stop anytime soon. This was a break as far as Jiraiya was concerned, "In order to make Lugia appear, you need its feather. But it's just one of two of Johto's Legendary Birds. And then there are the Legendary Beast Trio."

That was intriguing, but for now Lugia was the only one Jiraiya was concerned with. He'd check on the others after he chased any lead on Lugia he could find, "I need its feather to even find it? But that's kind of a paradox isn't it? I mean, if I can find its feather it would probably be after I already found it, so then I won't need it, but I can't even find it to begin with without having its feather."

"You could say that I guess. But I have a question for you. What do you think of this land?" Lance asked, finally dropping his smile and shifting his topic, "As someone that's come from somewhere not of this continent, I'd like to know what you think about it."

A fair question, and one that Jiraiya had thought of quite often since he and Naruto had arrived there.

Stroking his chin, Jiraiya took a moment to articulate his answer, "Well, I like the fact that there don't seem to be that many settlements of humans here. In the Elemental Nations there's more wild space not affected by humans than this so I'm not entirely out of sorts about it. I like it." As he said this his Jynx came closer to where he was sitting, "We don't have Pokémon there, so coming here was quite the shock at first."

"I see." With his bit spoken and heard, Lance stood up, his cape rustling with his movements, "It was nice to meet you Jiraiya. I think you might be one of the real good ones, so take care. I hope to see you again."

Jiraiya just watched the man leave, calmly walking in the direction of the running water and the waterfall. That ended much better than he thought it would have. When he felt a person with more strength than he'd felt from any other person he'd met on the Pokémon Continent, he expected a fight to break out somehow.

Sometimes things just worked out for the better didn't they?

The white-haired toad sage reached out and rubbed Kamisori's belly again as he looked out at his Lapras still in the water, "Well that wasn't so bad was it?" He then felt the instinctual need to pull his arm away just as Kamisori's teeth tried to snap around his limb and rip it off, "What the hell?"

Jumping away from the vicious Pokémon, Jiraiya used the bottom of his wooden sandal to block an Iron Head attack that sent him backflipping across the water of the falls, landing smoothly on the other side as Kamisori took off to fly and begin going for the kill.

What was going on? Kamisori had been fine until just a moment ago. They'd actually been getting along just fine since Naruto had let Jiraiya borrow him. He'd been a perfectly fine Pokémon partner until the Lance guy left.

If it came down to a fight, he'd have to handle it himself. It was a fact that Naruto's Pokémon were all stronger than Jiraiya's and it wasn't even close. He didn't keep them to battle with. He kept them as travel companions, so there was no question that Kamisori was more battle-adept than Jynx and Lapras.

Kamisori could fight and survive in the skies against Moltres and Articuno at the same time. When Jiraiya had borrowed him, he'd borrowed one of Naruto's heaviest hitting team members, and he felt that he was going to find out just how hard he hit firsthand.

"I don't want to hurt you big guy." Jiraiya said, eyes scanning them open air of the cave as he returned Jynx and Lapras to their Poke Balls. He needed them to be safe for the duration of the fight, "But if you think I won't open up a can of premium whoop-ass on you, you obviously didn't watch me train Naruto very much."

XxX

(Outside of Tohjo Falls)

Lance had made his quick exit from the falls using the distraction of the temporary mind control he'd enacted over Kamisori. He needed something to keep Jiraiya distracted as the man was disgustingly powerful.

If he fought him directly, there was a strong chance that he might not have been able to succeed without serious losses to his most powerful Pokémon that he kept on his person.

He really did like Jiraiya, and did believe that Jiraiya was one of the 'good ones' that would understand his viewpoint when it came to the actions he wanted to take soon. Of course just because he understood didn't mean that he'd go along with it. He seemed like the type that wouldn't do whatever was necessary to make things better if whatever was necessary meant that many people had to die.

Lance watched, seeing flashes of Hyper Beams blast through the rock of the cave. It was unfortunate that he had to sic Kamisori on Jiraiya, but the man was too strong, and it was clear that he wouldn't understand the reasoning for the kind of world that he wanted to bring about.

"It's better for me and for the rest of the Elite Four if you don't survive." Lance said, tossing a Poke Ball up and down in his hand as he listened to the sounds of combat from the outside of the cave, "I can't afford to make any mistakes with you. As a Dragon Master I'll show respect to your potential strength with most powerful Pokémon, and its most powerful attack. Dragonite, go."

A gigantic, bulky, orange bipedal dragon emerged from the orb, It possessed three claws at the ends of its arms and legs, a long tail, two wavy antennae, wings with green undersides, and a cream-colored belly.

Lance had a deep frown on his face as he looked at Hyper Beams from Kamisori blowing big holes through the rock from inside the cave, but no matter what he had to do what he had to do. And he did so without hesitation, "Dragonite, Hyper Beam."

With not a second of time to waste, Dragonite quickly charged intense energy between its two antennae and inside of its open mouth before firing it with a deafening, eardrum-splitting crack. In a flash it was all over with.

This had been a _real_ Hyper Beam, not just one learned by a fully evolved Pokémon. It had come from perhaps the most powerful trained Pokémon in the entire world.

When the dust cleared, there was a trench twenty feet in width from Dragonite to the cave as the landmark border point of Kanto and Johto collapsed inward on itself. What hadn't been outright eradicated from existence crumbled apart.

The incredible sight of the destroyed Tohjo Falls would only be seen by Lance and his Dragonite on this night. Without a word, Lance climbed onto Dragonite's back and let it take off into the sky to fly him out of there.

Before they left though, Lance surveyed the scene from above and saw that the waterfall was now being blocked rocks from the destroyed cave. Without saying a word to Dragonite, the large airborne Pokémon fired a smaller, weaker Hyper Beam from its antennae that blew apart the blockage. Once it was freed once more it began to submerge the rest of the site underwater.

He hadn't seen any sign of Jiraiya escaping the sudden cave-in, so this was just being thorough.

"Jiraiya if you survived that, perhaps I'll see you again sooner rather than later." Lance said, "Lugia is not a myth. Lugia is just one piece of the puzzle I need to begin bringing the destructive human blight on the land of Pokémon to an end."

XxX

(A Few Days Later – With Naruto and Janine – Violet City)

Now this was more like it as far as Naruto was concerned. Violet City was a nice place, bigger than Cherrygrove with way more trees in the area and bigger buildings. A lot of the buildings looked old-school as well, with lower-lying buildings and homes with classical roof tiling.

They were past seeing the sights though, and it seemed that Janine was psyching herself up for visiting the city's Gym Leader. The closer they seemed to get the less attentive to their surroundings she seemed to pay. She'd been checking out of it ever since she'd made a call to the Gym on a Pokémon Center videophone to let them know she was on the way.

She didn't even talk to the Gym Leader, just one of his attendants. She didn't even want to wait for the guy to get him, she just wanted to leave her message that she was on the way and promptly ended the call before anyone could retrieve him.

"Is it really that bad?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow after seeing his favorite travelling companion try to convince herself on the walk through town not to try and ram the face of whomever they were going to meet through the bars of an iron fence, "Did you make him mad back in the day or something?"

"The opposite actually." Janine told Naruto, eyes at the ground embarrassedly as they continued to walk together. Feeling Naruto's eyes still on her, she felt prodded to continue, "…Falkner, he used to kinda… bully me." The surprised expression on Naruto's face told her all she needed to know about how believable that was, "He bullied me when we were little kids."

It clearly took a lot for her to admit such a thing. It was a very vulnerable statement, and it showed how much she had grown as a woman as well as how much she trusted Naruto to divulge that personal information to him.

However Naruto was unsure how to respond to that, other than his original gut reaction.

His original gut reaction to laugh uproariously.

Janine's face turned a deep red. She hugged the egg incubator self-consciously as Naruto laughed from a good healthy place for several minutes. It got so bad that they had to stop so that he could lean against a wall to catch his breath.

That was great. He hadn't laughed that hard in quite some time. Not hard enough that it was actually bad for your health to continue.

Eventually though, he did stop laughing, and when he did he found that Janine hadn't joined him in any of it for a second. Only then did he realize his folly, "Ooh, you were serious." He said, realizing that he legitimately might have hurt her feelings. His bad, "Wait, _you_ got bullied? Who could bully you? You're a ninja, and a Gym Leader's kid!"

What the fuck? That was like a double-whammy for getting your ass whipped. Trying something like that, you could potentially be labeled too stupid to live. How could a little kid get away with doing anything like that to her, even if she herself had just been a small child at the time?

"Falkner is a Gym Leader's kid too." Janine said, "He didn't just get the position out of nowhere. He's been getting ready for the same thing I've been getting ready for, just as long as I have. And he never hit me or anything. He never did that. He was just a real jerk to me. He had a really smart mouth." Who was she kidding? He still had a smart mouth.

Now Naruto was really beginning to feel bad. He knew what it was like to get picked on too, even if she only really got it from one person in her life. And he'd gone and laughed at her about it. That wasn't funny. He felt like kicking his own ass, but he figured letting her do it instead would make him feel better.

"You can punch me if you want to." Naruto muttered lowly once they started walking again, "One time offer."

"No, I don't want to hit you Babyface. It's not that big a deal." Janine told him, gently stroking his cheek with the backside of her fingers not covered by her armguard, "Besides, you'd probably fight me back anyway right?"

They'd already gotten into a few fights back when they'd been travelling in Kanto and she'd seen Naruto kick plenty of tail, girls included, hers included. Thus she assumed doling out any strike in any capacity would end up with Naruto retaliating in kind.

If she were to thoughtfully pursue the matter any further she'd note that hitting Naruto once wasn't what it took to piss him off into fighting back. Hell, she'd thrown big metal coins at his head before and he didn't fight back, though that was more playing and mutual picking on each other than anything.

The one time they actually had a really big blowup outside of Lavender Town it was after two days of travelling, ghosts, and pent-up frustration for the both of them. Even then it took at least ten near-misses and her actually landing a really painful kick for him to actually fight her back.

Meanwhile on Naruto's side of things in regards to the topic; cue dozens of flashbacks to Konoha and getting his skull pulverized by a preteen female ninja with pink hair on a regular basis, as if it was part of his job description to get his ass kicked on demand. And he took it without retribution in mind. Every. Single. Time.

Janine did not know this however, and Naruto doubted she would actually do anything like that even if she did know, thank goodness. Even so, it was best to make sure it stayed that way.

"…Yeah Janine. I'd fight you back, 'ttebayo."

As poor a liar as he was, it didn't matter because Janine was more worried about not losing it around Falkner instead of Naruto's telltale verbal tic reaction to a throwaway comment she'd made in passing, "It's just, our dads were matched up to battle during a Gym Leader Tournament about nine years ago. That's how we first met, and ever since then he's been picking on me."

And Koga was all about having self-control, self-preservation, and being strong. Especially the last one. He accepted no substitutes in that department, even when she was young. It wasn't like Janine could run to him for advice that didn't end up with him telling her to string the guy from the highest rafters. She'd have been five when she met Falkner. And one thing Naruto knew by now was that a bunch of Gym Leaders (or Gym Leader kids in her case) knew a few other Gym Leaders and could easily contact them, so it wouldn't have been too difficult for this to continue over time.

"You're a Gym Leader these days though." Naruto reasoned, "What could he say about you now?"

"That actually made it worse. Now he's all on about how he became a Gym Leader first, and how his dad trained him better, and how bird Pokémon are cooler than poison-types." From the sound of things she could seemingly go on and on about it, "Ugh."

Naruto punched audibly into his palm, "So when this tournament rolls around just make sure you kick the shit out of him." He said before offering a few alternatives, "Or, and hear me out, you could kick the shit out of him now. Or _I_ could. Actually, I'd really like it if you let me do it."

"I told you, he never did anything physical so it's not worth fighting over." Janine assured Naruto before continuing to talk him down, "We can't just pick fights with Gym Leaders anyway. Not until the tournament. Erika would kill us both. I wasn't joking about that at all."

Blegh, stupid rules.

Although Naruto really didn't want to see what Erika was like when she was mad at someone, he was almost willing to risk it, "Come on! Now that I've heard he picked on you I'm kind of pissed off about it. Who the hell does he think he is? He can't do that to you."

That got Janine's attention, getting her to blink in surprise for a spell before smiling over at Naruto brightly. Getting defensive over her? That was a new one, and a very welcome new one as well, "Aw, that's sweet. But you don't have to worry, I can handle-."

"-Definitely not." Naruto muttered to himself, cutting Janine off, "That's my thing! Nobody gets to pick on you except me! Stealin' my goddamn thunder."

And now it wasn't so sweet anymore. Way to just flat-out kill that fuzzy feeling in her chest Naruto. Honestly, it was a talent to do such a thing so consistently in close moments time after time, "…Kiss my ass Babyface."

XxX

(Violet City Pokémon Gym)

On the rooftop battlefield of the structure, several of the Gym's underlings stared up in the sky at the dot of a bird Pokémon doing barrel rolls and other high-speed maneuvers that they couldn't hope to match up to. If it hadn't been so high in the air, their eyes wouldn't have been able to follow the speed.

"Falkner's been like that all morning." One of the trainers said to the others, "Ever since that call he missed that said Fuchsia City's Gym Leader was coming."

"Is he mad about it?" Those moves in the air looked pretty aggressive.

"No, pay attention to him." The first underling said, pointing up to try and get the others to see things closer, "Just look. He's excited about it."

XxX

On the back of a large bird with sharp silver wings, red inner wings, metallic talons, beak, tail, and head crest, a young man guided the Pokémon through the directed moves of the training exercise.

The trainer had dark blue hair parted over one eye, keeping the other sharp one peeled, scanning the air that was his domain. He wore a light blue kimono top and hakama pants with a white belt, a short white and blue haori, tabi socks and light shoes, and black wristbands.

Falkner; the Violet City Gym Leader.

"This is great Skarmory." The trainer said, patting the Pokémon with a clang off of its metal hide, "With speed like this it'll be hard not to impress her."

Skarmory let out a piercing metal cry as it picked up the pace even more. Without Falkner on its back it could move much faster, and he was conditioning himself to endure higher speeds safely so that he could reach those levels with Skarmory, but even for now it was quite the thrill to fly that quickly.

That was why training flying Pokémon was the best experience he could imagine.

He didn't have any interest in proving that Johto's Gym Leaders were better than Kanto's. That had nothing to do with his motivations for participating and training for the tournament.

No, he was going to prove that he was the best bird keeper of them all to show his old childhood adversary that he was just as good as he always wanted to make her think he was. Now that he had followed in his father's footsteps and taken the position as Violet City's Gym Leader, he would definitely impress her.

"My flying Pokémon and I are going to make an impact on little 'Nina once and for all." Falkner said with a confident smile as he continued to soar through the air, "…Because we're not so little anymore."

* * *

><p>Naruto's Current Pokémon Team<p>

Ranbouen (Arcanine): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal), Flame Wheel (Fire), Flame Burst (Fire), Flamethrower (Fire), ExtremeSpeed (Normal), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Electric).

Hogohei (Cloyster): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water), Swift (Normal) Aurora Beam (Ice), Protect (Normal), Spike Cannon (Normal), Surf (Water).

Fukigenko (Hitmonlee): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Double Kick (Fighting), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Rolling Kick (Fighting), Meditate (Psychic), Jump Kick (Fighting), Revenge (Fighting), Substitute (Normal), Hi Jump Kick (Fighting), Blaze Kick (Fire).

Sazakumoru (Marowak): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Bone Club (Ground), Headbutt (Normal), Focus Energy (Normal), Bonemerang (Ground), Rage (Normal), Smack Down (Rock), Swords Dance (Normal), Thrash (Normal), Earthquake (Ground), Bone Rush (Ground), Return (Normal).

Shujinken (Misdreavus): Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Psywave (Psychic), Spite (Ghost), Astonish (Ghost), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Psybeam (Psychic), Double Team (Normal), Shadow Ball (Ghost), Pain Split (Normal), Thunderbolt (Electric).

Chienha (Chikorita): Female  
>Attacks: Tackle (Normal), Growl (Normal), Razor Leaf (Leaf), Synthesis (Grass), Sweet Scent (Normal).<span><br>

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Ariados: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Fury Swipes (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost), Spider Web (Bug), Flash (Normal), Sucker Punch (Dark), Agility (Normal), Poison Jab (Poison).

Grimer: Genderless  
><span>Attacks<span>: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison), Sludge Bomb (Poison), Curse (Ghost), Flamethrower (Fire), Strength (Normal).

Golbat: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying), Wing Attack (Flying), Aerial Ace (Flying), Double Team (Normal), Haze (Ice), Venoshock (Poison), Fly (Flying).

Venomoth: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Disable (Normal), Foresight (Normal), Confusion (Psychic), Stun Spore (Grass), Attract (Normal), Double Team (Normal), Silver Wind (Bug), Gust (Flying), Poison Fang (Poison).

Forretress: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Tackle (Normal), Protect (Normal), Selfdestruct (Normal), Bug Bite (Bug), Take Down (Normal), Gyro Ball (Steel), Bide (Normal), Mirror Shot (Steel), Iron Defense (Steel), Flash Cannon (Steel).

Silver's Current Pokémon Team

Sneasel: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Slash (Normal), Quick Attack (Normal), Icy Wind (Ice), Ice Punch (Ice), Thief (Dark), Faint Attack (Dark), Metal Claw (Steel), Hone Claws (Dark), Agility (Psychic), Fury Swipes (Normal), Hail (Ice).

Murkrow: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Peck (Flying), Astonish (Ghost), Mean Look (Normal), Pursuit (Dark), Fly (Flying), Haze (Ice), Night Shade (Ghost), Wing Attack (Flying), Dark Pulse (Dark), Psychic (Psychic).

Totodile: Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Frustration (Normal), Scratch (Normal), Bite (Dark), Water Gun (Water), Ice Punch (Ice), Rage (Normal), Rain Dance (Water), Surf (Water).

Jiraiya's Current Pokémon Team

Jynx: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Lovely Kiss (Normal), Powder Snow (Ice), DoubleSlap (Normal), Ice Punch (Ice), Heart Stamp (Psychic), Avalanche (Ice), Wake-Up Slap (Fighting), Body Slam (Normal).

Lapras: Female  
><span>Attacks<span>: Sing (Normal), Water Gun (Water), Surf (Water), Mist (Ice), Confuse Ray (Ghost), Water Pulse (Water), Body Slam (Normal), Rain Dance (Water), Ice Beam (Ice).

(Traded/Borrowed) Kamisori (Aerodactyl): Male  
><span>Attacks<span>: Ice Fang (Ice), Fire Fang (Fire), Thunder Fang (Thunder), Roar (Normal), Wing Attack (Flying), Crunch (Dark), Agility (Psychic), Fly (Flying), AncientPower (Rock), Iron Head (Steel), Hyper Beam (Normal).

* * *

><p><strong>Okay, so now we got all this goin' on too. Now remember this story uses the Pokemon Adventures universe as its backdrop. So take everything you know about the anime andor the games, make it five shades darker, add depth to the character of the Gym Leaders, and there you 'll probably have a better understanding of what's up and a better idea of where all of this could more than likely go.  
><strong>

**Take what you will from the chapter and then go do something productive. That's what I'm going to go do. Food ain't going to put itself on the table, you know what I mean. Yeah? Yeah?**

**...Nah, you guys are cool.**

**Kenchi out.**


	21. Through Thick and Thin

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. To this day I still sing the theme song to the original U.S. Pokémon anime out loud when I feel the need to throw my opponents off in Brazilian jiu-jitsu practice. It works.

I want to be the very best… like no one EVER was.

**Chapter 21: Through Thick and Thin**

* * *

><p>Violet City Pokémon Gym was a pretty impressive building.<p>

A large lavender-colored tower with large windows for bird Pokémon to fly freely through, allowing them to move in and out at their leisure and on the command of their trainers. It was, on the outside, a perfect sort of building meant to house the types of Pokémon Trainers that one would find within. It encouraged flight.

"Man," Naruto said, shading his eyes as he stared up at the top of the building, "This place is huge," He was thoroughly impressed just from an outside view. More so than with any other Pokémon Gym he'd seen at first glance, "They couldn't have built this place any taller?" He asked jokingly.

"It's a Pokémon Gym for birds Babyface," Janine pointed out rather snippily, "It's not supposed to be dumpy and to the ground," She then realized just how harsh that sounded and winced sharply, "…I'm sorry, really. That was bitchy."

She didn't really need to apologize to Naruto as far as he was concerned. He'd had people that were supposed to be friends and teammates say worse things to his face, so a terse attitude didn't bother him much. She was a good girl and he knew it, so it didn't matter.

"It's alright," Naruto assured her, "I totally get it. You don't want to be here. It's fine."

Janine gave him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and hit him lightly on the arm in a good-natured manner for the support, "Well let's go and get this over with. We all have to do things we don't want to," She said before looking back at the Gym and sighing, "…And I really don't want to do this."

The pair walked inside and took note of the interior.

There were multiple elevated floors with open staircases for the bird Pokémon to fly around, allowing them more open space on the inside than could be found in any other building in the region. They could fly straight up to the top floor if they wanted to, and could fly in and out of the windows that were all over the walls. Everything was supported by pillars that ran up to the ceiling. This along with the stairs made obstacles for the bird Pokémon to train their maneuverability according to their trainers' commands.

In the middle of the Gym there was a clear tube that an elevator platform ran up, and this was where Naruto and Janine went to head on up to the roof in order to look for the Gym Leader.

As they began the ride up, Naruto looked over at Janine who seemed to be staring at nothing in particular in front of her while chewing on her bottom lip. Looking down at her chest where she was holding the Egg case, Naruto could see her fingers drumming off of the glass from either nerves or annoyance.

She really would have rather been anywhere but there.

He understood. No matter how old you got or how far you came in life, there would still be something from your youth that would get to you no matter how hard you tried to keep it from doing so. In this case she wasn't even that far removed from that youth. She was going to this person that she didn't like, willing to suck it up to ask for a favor to make their experience in Kanto more comfortable.

Honestly, Naruto figured that he could have been more helpful about the entire thing. They didn't necessarily _need_ to get help to get to Olivine City in a hurry because there was no hurry. He could have assured Janine that there was no need for them to do something that made her visibly uncomfortable. If nothing else, even if she insisted that they do it anyway it would have given her some support. It was what a friend would have done.

Looking down at one hand she had freed from the case, Naruto slowly moved his over to try and grab it as a show of consideration for her. But he never got that far, as the elevator stopped abruptly on the roof, forcing him to jerk his hand back before he could even so much as brush her fingers.

She had hardly taken a step forward as she cradled the Egg case until she heard someone call out to her from the sky.

"Little 'Nina!"

She cringed at hearing her nickname. The only person she'd ever tolerated calling her anything of the sort in her life without consequence was Erika, and she was her best friend. She'd just gotten used to Naruto referring to her as such without verbally rebuking him since their reunion. Thus, hearing it there wasn't exactly a welcome thing.

Still, it was a matter of being a professional, of compromising personal preference in exchange for doing the right thing as being a Gym Leader required. Being cordial was to be expected of her, "Falkner."

He looked a lot like how she remembered. Same haircut, but the way he made his appearance was new.

Jumping off of the back of one of his bird Pokémon, He fell spread-eagle, triggering a mechanism under the arms of his kimono top and the legs of his baggy pants that allowed him to glide safely through the sky to the ground, landing in a graceful crouch.

Naruto had to admit, that was damned impressive. He wished his clothes let him do that.

Standing up and flipping his hair to where it leaned over part of his face, he smirked and walked over to the Fuchsia City kunoichi, "It's been a long, long time hasn't it? You look a little bit more grown up than you used to 'Nina."

"Ehehe… you too Falkner," Janine said with an amicable smile despite the hesitance in her tone, "So how have you been after all these years?"

"Winning," He said, looking up to the sky, "Every day when you train bird Pokémon, the sky's the limit." Now of course, the underling trainers of the Gym nearby thought that sounded great, and summed up everything that was great about their Gym.

To Naruto and Janine however, that had been incredibly cheesy. _Really_ lame. And that was saying something, because Naruto had spent the better part of a full year around Jiraiya and his constant allegorical references to how awesome he was after getting his ass beaten down in training. It took a lot to top one of those, and Falkner might have done it within thirty seconds of meeting Naruto.

"Yeah… that's great," Janine tried to move things along to keep from dwelling on that bomb of a statement, "Well, ahem, I came here because I thought that I could ask for your help with something. You know, as a favor from one Gym Leader to another, Johto to Kanto, camaraderie and friendship, that whole thing." She started sweetly.

Falkner regarded her with a thoughtful look for a moment before chuckling a bit to himself, "Well I'm not sure. I mean it's not like you have tenure. You haven't really built up any goodwill as a Gym Leader. I mean, compared to most of the rest of us, you were pretty late to the dance weren't you?"

Oh, here we go. Keep it civil girl.

"There were extenuating circumstances," Janine insisted, handing the case off to Naruto, "I know I've only been in the position for most of the year, but I've gone unbeaten the whole time. That's got to count for something."

Falkner didn't flinch, smirking at her, "Oh Little 'Nina, still so unprepared. Beating a bunch of random walk-ins off of the street is what you're supposed to do. Really the only excuse a Gym Leader can ever use to justify a loss is if all the rest lose, and anyone completing the Gym Leader Challenge is so rare it might as well be a non-issue."

"The only people I've lost to in forever are the Champion Red and Babyface!"

"…Who the hell is 'Babyface'?"

"Babyface is Babyface! Right there!" Janine shouted, pointing at Naruto who simply stood aside aimlessly, holding onto her Egg, "Jeez, with the kind of Pokémon you train I figured your eyesight would have been better Birdbrain!" She then covered her mouth abruptly after snapping, 'Wait, why'd he stop?'

Falkner was staring intensely at Naruto, who he'd figured at first to be just some retainer from the Fuchsia City Gym that she'd brought along to assist her. Most Gym Leaders that travelled on official business did that if they didn't want to risk being alone or if they were training an apprentice directly.

This guy didn't seem like either of those things now though. He wasn't anyone's underling. It seemed like he was just as old as they were. And that nickname of hers for him, it kind of grated on him that she referred to him so familiarly and it didn't bother him a touch.

Falkner walked up to Naruto and observed him closely. Almost uncomfortably close, "I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that your name isn't 'Babyface'."

"Uh… Uzumaki Naruto."

"Well then Uzumaki-."

"You can call me Naruto. Uzumaki's my family name. Just sayin'."

"Well then Naruto, what exactly are you doing all the way here with 'Nina?"

Blinking in confusion, Naruto pointed to himself, "You didn't know yet? I thought Erika would have said something if she was already jumping on our cases about being proper representatives," He looked over at Janine just to get a shrug, "I'm Kanto's eighth in the tournament a few months from now. Vermillion City's rep."

"You?" Falkner recoiled in surprise, "…What happened to Lt. Surge? He was the Gym Leader."

At this point Janine stepped in on informing her contemporary Gym Leader on what the situation was, at least with that particular Gym Leader, "About him. A miffed Zapdos shoved a lighting storm up his ass nine months back, so no one's ever going to be seeing him again."

"Ooh," Falkner nodded and cringed, "Hoisted by his own petard I see."

In response to hearing that, Naruto tilted his head in confusion, "Hoisted by his what-what now?"

The blue-haired Gym Leader just looked from Naruto to Janine questioningly as if to ask her why in the hell she was with him. Just because he was a stand-in didn't mean they had to travel together for anything. That hadn't been explained, "You still haven't told me what he's doing with you."

"Well it's no fun travelling alone," Janine defended, "I haven't been to Johto in a long, long time, and I figured that to get ready for this Gym Leader tournament I should go on a training trip."

"Weren't you on a training trip for years before you wound up the Gym Leader?"

"…Kind of."

"So this is a vacation? Ha, you're super lazy and irresponsible 'Nina," Falkner declared, getting Janine to sputter and go red-faced, "How did anyone ever accept you as a Gym Leader? Even with the old archaic way Fuchsia City picks their leaders, someone had to say something about it."

Janine bit her tongue about the way that she'd heard Falkner had become Gym Leader. She couldn't start a fight, and that also meant antagonizing Falkner into starting one for her.

"I guess after all these years my dad trained me better than yours trained you," The flying Pokémon Gym Leader said with an almost casual shrug, "It isn't really surprising though. Trainers are kind of reflected in their choice of favorites and poison types just aren't as good as flying types. Kind of how like you just aren't as good as me."

Fortunately, someone else was more than willing to shoot his mouth off for her, even if he had also been expressly given the directions to not start a fight. Naruto would have rather chosen to find out just what an angry Erika looked like than stomach this guy for another minute if this was how he was going to be.

"She's a Gym Leader because she earned it," Naruto interjected, walking into the conversation as he continued to hold the Egg that was the reason for their visit, "What's your problem anyway? She came in here trying to be nice and you kept trying to turn it into an argument."

And not even a fun argument like the ones the two of them had regularly. The kind where he took unnecessary shots at her for the sake of chipping at her self-esteem. For what reason he didn't know, but Naruto could definitely see how shit like that could wear thin quickly. Janine didn't need this, even for an easy fix to a mission.

Taking offense to Naruto butting in, Falkner pointed at him stiffly, "Hey, this is our thing. It's not your problem."

"It's my problem as long as I've got to listen to this and she's too nice to break your jaw," The Konoha ninja rebutted, "We came here to ask you for some help, but if you're really this much of an assclown I'd feel sick if I let Janine ask you for any kind of favor."

It was the wrong thing to do, and Janine knew it, but hearing him do it felt so good to her. It was nice to know that Naruto could feel defensive of her like that. They were friends and all, and that was great, but knowing that someone cared enough to feel offended for your sake was just something else.

"You can't talk about our leader like that!"

"Falkner's ten times the trainer you are!"

"Yeah?" Naruto asked, sneering in the direction of the lesser bird keepers that had said something in retaliation to his words, "More like ten times the dickhole if you ask me. Even if you do think he's better he's still a jerk. We don't need anything from you," This time when Naruto reached for Janine's hand he didn't stop halfway through, actually taking it as they departed to the elevator platform to leave.

Wow, standing through all of that really did piss him off. Janine had a touch of red on her cheeks from how forceful he was, and he'd even basically taken Falkner down a peg by refusing to acknowledge him enough to fight him because he was being a Rapidash's ass.

Who knew good old Naruto could be cool like that?

But then again, they hadn't left yet. They were still there.

Naruto's foot stomped on the elevator platform several times before he began looking around sheepishly, "…How do I make this thing go down?"

'Oh Babyface…' Janine thought to herself, holding her temple with her free hand, "…Oh so close." She muttered under her breath before moving to a particular spot on the platform and pressing with a little more pressure than was needed to stand to activate it.

Falkner just glared at Naruto as the elevator descended. That smile on Janine's face that the blond had put there had come at his expense, and it had been his own fault that it had happened like this. What was he, five? What was he expecting to move forward with by acting like they were kids and picking on her? He'd effectively made himself look like a douche.

He'd never even heard what Janine had wanted to ask him for.

XxX

Even as they exited the Gym, Naruto still held a firm grip on Janine's hand, the Pokémon Egg still in the grip of his other arm. He stormed off in no particular direction as long as it got them away from that stupid Gym, "Gah, that guy! I mean, yeah half of the Gym Leaders in Kanto were assholes, but at least they had the excuse of bein' bad guys."

Janine just stared after him as she was more or less forced to follow along. Was it so wrong that something in her head whispered for a half-second to jump his bones before his elevator faux pas? She'd squashed it down quickly enough, but it had lingered long enough that she couldn't ignore that she'd had the thought.

"Just let it go. It's over," The girl said, trying to soothe Naruto's temper. She couldn't remember seeing him legitimately pissed off about something so day-to-day before, "That's what he's always been like; head in the clouds, running his mouth… kind of like you."

"No way! I was-!" Naruto rebutted before turning his head and noticing the Cheshire grin on her face from her last remark. She'd only said it to get him to take some of the edge off, "…Well maybe. But I was never that nasty about it was I?"

"No, even when we were in shouting matches with each other you were never particularly nasty," Janine admitted honestly before taking another chance at embarrassing him, "You were always a real sweetie about arguing; as much of a gentleman as someone like you can be."

"I don't know how to take that."

"Oh come on. I've given you way more backhanded compliments than that."

By now, Naruto had clearly noticed that he was holding her hand, but he didn't let go of it, because he didn't want to. And Janine herself hadn't pulled away or brought it up, so maybe she didn't want them to let go of each other either.

In a sudden movement, Janine took the lead and began guiding Naruto with a reassuring smile toned down from her previous jesting grin, "Hey, follow me. I know a good place for you to calm down."

XxX

(Meanwhile – Route 32)

Since losing to Naruto on the shores of Cherrygrove City, Silver had been training his Pokémon almost nonstop. He'd drill one with a taskmaster-like approach until he was satisfied and then do the same with another while allowing the others to rest.

There was no shortage of wild Pokémon to practice on, and no shortage of roving trainers in over their heads to fight against in real battles to test his technique and strategies on.

Still though, with every bit of advancement he made with his Pokémon he couldn't help but think about Naruto; his target. None of the trainers he defeated could give him any sort of combat experience that could compare to the particular way that Naruto fought.

He was getting stronger, but even if his Pokémon were up to the level that Naruto's were by the time they came across each other again, the unorthodox manner of fighting that his enemy used would still get to him.

If he wanted to kill him, he had to think closely about everything he could recall, and possibly try to see what it was about the fighting style that made it so effective. Take away the factor of Naruto's odd abilities, there was nothing he could do about that. What was it that made his general way of fighting so oppressive? And how could he stop it?

That was the question and he had to find his own answer to it if he wanted to win and get his revenge for his estranged father.

It was only appropriate that as he thought of that dark issue he passed underneath the shadow of the bridge that was a part of the Magnet Train track. The tall bridge was a leg of the path that ran straight from Saffron City in Kanto to Goldenrod City in Johto.

As he did so he felt the presence of a man move from behind a tree to confront him for something. The angry redhead didn't need to call upon a Pokémon to deal with him, but just in case, the hand he always had in one of his pockets was set to draw his quickest one just in case he needed it.

"Hey," The shady figure said, "You look like the kind of guy that knows what to get your Pokémon to make them stronger. You ever heard of Slowpoke Tail?" Silver raised his eyebrow and the peddler took this as interest, "You know about how Rare Candy permanently powers up your Pokémon? Well this is even better. All natural. How about it? 100000 yen."

"100000 you say?" Silver said, "For something better than Rare Candy? It's that much better?" A nod came from the peddler at hearing the eager tone of Silver's voice, figuring that his hand was in his pocket because he was going for his wallet, "Well in that case let me-." Abruptly he found himself lain out staring up at the underside of the bridge.

He didn't even see Silver hit him, but he definitely felt it. He let out a cough from his now busted mouth and sat up to see the teenage boy that had hit him giving him a cold look, "What? You just hit me!" Reaching for a Poke Ball in his possession to fight back, he learned that this was an even worse idea.

"Totodile, Bite!"

Suddenly he found the powerful jaws of the little blue bipedal alligator creature snap down around his hand before he could release whatever Pokémon he was going to let out. The Bite attack was hard enough to break his wrist and cause the man to cry out in pain.

Silver nodded, content with Totodile's performance, even with a single attack. Its technique was significantly better than when he'd begun training it. And now he had this man where he wanted him, "I don't need Rare Candy to make my Pokémon stronger," That insult alone was enough to piss him off, but it wasn't the reason he attacked, "But Slowpoke Tail? Are you kidding? Any real trainer that knows Pokémon for real knows that old wives' tale is fake. Newbies and people that don't know Slowpokes are the only ones you'll sell on that."

"Alright! Alright! I get it!" The salesman said, hitting the ground in pain with his free hand, "Let me go and I'll get out of here!"

"No I don't think so. Three questions, and you'd better answer honestly or you might lose that hand," Silver said, indicating that Totodile would snap it off, "Why charge that much for a useless item? Rare Candies are only 5000 yen each in the few places that actually sell them."

"I got ripped off by some girl alright! She cleaned me out of my earnings and I needed to make it back or my suppliers would bury me alive!"

He didn't care that the guy was dumb enough to get robbed, but he didn't like the sound of his having handlers, "Suppliers? And they would be who and where?"

"I can't tell you tha-! AAAAHHH!"

With a movement of his hand, the pressure of Totodile's jaw increased on the wrist as blood dripped from his mouth from the wrist, "You have two more of those and you're going to need a lot of duct tape to fix that. If he bites down hard enough he'll cut the artery and you know how that'll end…"

"Team Rocket!" The man cried out between sobs, "It's Team Rocket! They're the ones harvesting the tails… Azalea Town. Just let go."

With a click of Silver's tongue, Totodile let go and spit blood on the ground, apparently not a fan of it. The salesman dropped the Poke Ball that had been in his hand before it had been ensnared, having never even expanded the ball to prepare to throw it, "…Water Gun."

"Wait-!"

Totodile didn't hesitate before blasting its target with a punishing jet of water from its mouth, sending the human flying mercilessly into a support of the Magnet Train bridge where he didn't move again. Whether he was unconscious or dead, Silver didn't know, but what he did know was that he'd found a good place to train himself in a life or death battle.

It didn't help that he wasn't a fan of Team Rocket after knowing who his father was and what his reasons had been to inadvertently leave him to suffer the horrible childhood he'd endured.

XxX

(That Evening – With Naruto – Violet City – Sprout Tower)

Okay, heading there had been a great idea. Naruto had to admit, Janine had been spot on with picking that place to go to. First of all, it was a huge 100-foot classical tower, not unlike something he'd have seen in Konoha if buildings ever got that large.

Second of all, the inside was amazing. There was a single flexible pagoda within that served as the sole support for the entire building all the way through and up. That was just architecturally badass, especially since the place could endure an earthquake without losing a hint of anything because of it.

Third of all, everything they had to do just to get to the top floor oozed awesome. Just to progress through the floors they had to take turns fighting against monks. Aggressive, Pokémon-battling, martial-arts using monks that all used Bellsprout as their partner of choice.

A kickass method to work off steam and a way to put Naruto's new Chikorita through her paces? Yes please. If the lazy grass Pokémon didn't want to battle anymore after that, Naruto totally understood, but at the time it had been impressive for her to do and she'd earned her reprieve.

By the time they'd reached the top, there weren't any monks left to face, because they had beaten them all. It had taken the rest of the afternoon and had been a hell of a workout.

The roof was a great place to lay out and rest in the newly risen moonlight. They didn't even realize how long they'd been inside of the tower until going up top to get some air.

"Whew…" Janine commented flat on her back on the tiles, staring up at the dark sky, "I'm kind of blown up now after all of that. _Good_ fights."

"If I had to get hit with one more Flash attack I swear to Kami…" Naruto said in return, just sitting down and rubbing his eyes to try and clear his blurry vision.

"Well how else were they supposed to hit you? You were all over the place and making clones," Janine defended for the monks' sake, "You and Chienha barreled through like five of them and their Pokémon before that one guy was smart enough to start using it to slow you down."

"Yeah, well now I can't see straight. I hate that move."

"It'll wear off Babyface. You know it was still fun," More importantly than anything else was that she'd gotten him to burn off his frustrations in a manner that didn't screw them over with Erika for anything, as much as she appreciated earlier, "I never said it, but thanks for before. With Falkner. I mean it."

"Don't mention it," Naruto said, waving the whole thing off. That had been hours ago. He was past it and he didn't want Janine to think about it anymore, "I know a lot of people don't think I'm smart, but I know the difference between good-natured messing with someone and just being unpleasant. He was always like that?"

Janine nodded and pulled out her Poke Ball that contained one of her Pokémon, "When we were younger he actually was stronger than me. His flying-types were better for young trainers to use than poison-types, easier to handle. I didn't know how strong I needed to be to shut him up, so I never came to Violet City when I was travelling around if I could help it. This is all before I met you."

"But now you're a Gym Leader, the best of the best right? Nobody's got anything to say now."

"Heh-heh, Gym Leaders aren't the best of the best by the way."

What? That was news to Naruto. They were the ones with the most power from town to town out of everyone that he'd met on the Pokémon Continent, and when it came to their battle skills they backed it up in combat. Who else could have possibly been stronger?

Janine lifted an arm in the air with four fingers displayed for him to see, "The Elite Four. I don't even know if they're real. I don't know anyone who's ever seen any of them, but they're the best. I'd fight someone as strong as my dad ten times back-to-back before I took on one of them."

"So you know who they are?" She seemed to know every Gym Leader in Kanto before she'd met them with him, so maybe this was like that? Naruto wondered if she knew these Elite Four people as well.

"Not really. Just their names," The Fuchsia City Gym Leader said, sitting up and scooting closer to Naruto to dish rumors with him, "Like I said, I don't know anyone that's actually seen them before. There's Lorelei the ice specialist, Bruno the fighting specialist, Agatha the ghost specialist, and Lance the dragon master. Lance is supposed to be the strongest."

A frown crossed Naruto's face as he squinted over in her direction, "Mmm… when people say things like that about not knowing if things are real, they usually are. So is that like a title or something?" Janine shook her head, "So what makes them so 'elite'?"

"Aside from finishing the Gym Leader Challenge the way you did? They did it in both Johto _and_ Kanto. Lance used to be the Champion the way Red is now, years back," And that was just the tip of the iceberg. They'd earned their notoriety more than any others to definitely receive their attention, "I don't know why they got together and disappeared, but they're all so strong and well known that when they did disappear they were all lumped together and that was what people called them."

They sounded kind of like the sannin of Konoha… except they weren't ninjas… and there were four of them… and all of the other things that kept the two from being similar. Actually on second thought there probably wasn't much relating the two at all.

Up in sight of the moon, they could see a view of two bird Pokémon flying, which wasn't abnormal because of where they were; a town where training birds was popular. It also wasn't abnormal to see someone flying with them via some sort of support, like the strap held between the feet of the two Pokémon.

What was strange was when they vanished out of the air.

Naruto's eyes went wide and Janine sat up from where she'd been lying down, both moving for their bags as a third person appeared on the rooftop with them. A woman with long silver-blue hair and a frowning theatre mask stood a short distance away on the sizeable roof. She wore a low-cut yellow top with black trim that exposed a significant portion of her belly as well as white pants with a yellow-jeweled belt and yellow heeled shoes.

"What a cute date," The woman said from behind her mask as the teenage pair reacted to the intrusion on their privacy, "Sorry to interrupt, but I just need one thing from you both, and then I'll leave you both alone to suck each other's faces or whatever it is kids do to end their nights," In their direction she extended her hand as if she wanted something, "Hand over the Master Ball."

Janine blanched while Naruto just stared at the woman confusedly, "What the hell is a Master Ball?"

"The strongest Poke Ball in the world," The masked woman said, "Silph Co. developed it in Saffron City, but only two were ever listed as being manufactured. One was used already by Blaine of Cinnabar Island, the other was unaccounted for. You have it."

"I've never even been to Silph-…" Naruto trailed off before he remembered a conversation he'd had with Janine upon arriving in New Bark Town, and how she didn't rip them off before she'd fought Koga on the rooftop of their headquarters, "Damn it Janine, you told me that you didn't steal stuff!"

"I _didn't_ steal stuff!" Janine repeated before blushingly choosing her words more particularly, "I stole one thing. It was just one Poke Ball for a keepsake! A souvenir! A trophy! When was I ever going to get into Silph Co.'s R&D vault again?" Sometimes you had to take the openings that life gave you. Who would have turned that opportunity down?

The masked woman got tired of listening to the two ninjas argue with each other over when it was reasonable to rip off a multi-billion yen company of a treasured item simply for the novelty of doing so, "This is intriguing and all, but like I said, hand over the Master Ball."

Naruto and Janine stopped arguing, both turning towards the person trying to extort them as Naruto spoke up, "I'm gonna go ahead and say… no. Even if she did steal it."

Janine added on as a follow-up, "Not a chance."

"Hell no."

"We're not in the business of giving things away for free. Well, I'm not. Babyface does. But then only when he feels like it!"

"-And I totally don't feel like it today! Today's sucked as far as I'm concerned!"

"I thought the battles through Sprout Tower were fun."

"Well yeah, those were great, but it doesn't make up for Falkner and now this does it?"

The silver-haired woman rolled her eyes, not that anyone could see them behind her mask, and snapped her fingers, causing a wind storm to kick up in Naruto and Janine's direction, "I wasn't really asking, and I'm definitely not compensating you for anything that I could just take for free by force."

Naruto stuck himself to the roof with his chakra and Janine stabbed down into the surface with a kunai to hold herself in place, "Aaah, it's some kind of invisible force pushing at us!"

"That's called wind Babyface!"

"I was being funny!"

"Being dumb isn't funny!"

"Ugh, screw this! Chakura no Kusari (Chakra Chains)!" Naruto had been prepared to fire chakra chains directly at his foe, but noticed that his would-be target had vanished in the intense wind right before his eyes, "…This ain't a normal trainer is it?"

Well they weren't normal either, and it was time to prove that, "Venomoth, Gust!" Janine called out, bringing her poisonous aerial bug Pokémon forth to do battle, "Aim there!" She added, pointing specifically at a certain point.

Due to the debris flying through the air, Janine noticed that the winds were coming from multiple directions. This meant that they were created by multiple Pokémon, and her Venomoth could create a safe pocket for someone to move through them with the right aim.

Flapping its wings particularly hard to kick up a wind of its own, the large moth managed to carve a safe zone through the wind storm that Naruto lost no time in going straight through to try and reach another area on the rooftop, "Babyface, be careful!"

Despite Venomoth managing to lessen the force of the wind against them, Naruto had been the only one really safe to move because of his sticking abilities, and Janine didn't want to risk letting her bag alone or moving too much with it as it still contained the Egg Incubator.

'Be careful' though? Naruto was always careful in his own humble opinion.

He was perfectly careful as he charged straight at the first sign of the masked woman that he could see through the wind tunnel, only to find at the end of it that it was a Murkrow flapping its wings for the wind storm with the mask held up in its beak.

…Clever woman.

At the last second he ducked a kick of a yellow-heeled shoe but didn't turn around in time to catch his attacker. How she was moving that fast he didn't know.

He could hear her laughing at him, and this wasn't necessarily the worst way to fight against him. She had to know something about how to take him on if she was keeping from engaging in a direct conflict by making a hard-to-see-through wind storm in the dead of night just to keep him from getting a lock on where she was.

Okay, it was okay. Just remain calm, close your eyes because they're useless at the moment, and focus. This was totally doable. He had handled something like this when Jiraiya spent a week terrorizing him around the Safari Zone. Oh, those were dark days indeed.

This was a dark time as well, but as long as he kept his head, Naruto believed he could take the lemons given to him here and make lemonade out of them. If he could just feel the attack coming before it came she'd never anticipate a counter, depending on how well he reacted.

From the moment he'd set out to find the woman, Naruto had extended a Chakra Chain from his arm and allowed it to space out over a good portion of the roof so that he could feel any disturbances that passed by it.

A faint vibration of a chain against his arm warned Naruto of the direction that something was coming in, forcing him to turn around and lash out with a jumping kick before the woman got close. She pulled back just short of the blow landing, but it had come close enough to smashing her face that it knocked her mask off.

She had been halfway riding some sort of black cat-like thing with a sleek body, glowing red eyes that could clearly see him despite the difficulty of Naruto himself to see around him, yellow bands around its ears and tail, and yellow rings on its forehead and its thighs. It was fast, which was how she'd been able to get in on him and attack so quickly before vanishing.

Quickly calling forth a Pokémon, Naruto wasn't willing to let her blend back into the darkness of the night and the wind storm since he'd caught her, "Shuji-chan, Psywave!" The little banshee of his Pokémon team shrieked and let loose visible purple waves of energy that didn't seem to slow down the woman's Pokémon in the slightest.

"Hahahaha… Umbreon is a dark-type. That won't hurt him," Damn it. It wasn't like Naruto had time to whip out the Pokédex and analyze the thing on the spot, "They're rare I know, but take my word when I say you're wasting your time with that attack."

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Ten extra-pissed off Narutos popped into existence and set out to scour the roof and corner the woman.

"Now that's more like it!" The voice taunted before the wind storm picked up again, "Not the best idea when you're caught in something of a cross-breeze though. Whirlwind!"

She had multiple Murkrow out and around the tower to keep the battle in her favor. One or two alone wouldn't have been enough to make something like this that could have remained that strong.

"Spider Web!" Between the pinnacle of the tower in the center and the ground, a fairly large web was enacted by Janine's Ariados that she, her Venomoth, Naruto, and his Misdreavus allowed themselves to stick to in order to keep from being blown away as Naruto's clones were sucked into the sky and took the plunge, "Damn it! Who is this lady?"

Whoever it was, she'd been ready to fight them. She had to have known well in advance what her plan to deal with them was going to be. This could have worked anywhere, but on a tower it was exceptionally dangerous. Clones, tiles, chunks of the edge of all eaves of the tower, all of it went up into the air and flew off to land somewhere else in Violet City nearby.

While they held on for dear life, Naruto pulled Shujinken close and whispered to her before pointing directly up at the pinnacle of the Sprout Tower that they were in the web by, "…And be careful." He added on after issuing his order.

Shujinken ghosted her way through the building in her bid to keep herself safe before reaching the top. She was going to go through with her beloved and funny master's order, because it didn't seem that bad of an idea to her, dangerous as it was.

He told her to be careful though, and she would be.

Upon peeking her head out of the top off the spire, Shujinken let her hair tendrils flail around wildly as electricity forced its way out of them in a destructive manner. Down below in the web, Naruto could see the electric charge up above them and grinned as it seemed to be working the way he figured it would.

"Shuji-chan, Thunderbolt!"

Janine's eyes widened at that bit of strategy. Naruto was using the metal at the top of the tower like a focal point to tesla coil the entire area around the upper levels. Anything anywhere around the tower would be at risk of being electrocuted.

She doubted that Naruto knew it because he didn't seem like his forte, but they were in the only place on the exterior of the Sprout Tower that would be safe below the second floor that was covered by an eave.

In a matter of seconds, the wind storm caused by multiple Whirlwind attacks died down completely, because Shujinken had shot down the several Murkrows that had been causing them. Pained squawks accompanied the lessening of the storm that eventually dissipated.

Considering how high-level Shujinken had been in the first place, along with the method Naruto used to distribute the Thunderbolt, and the fact that she'd been attacking bird Pokémon, it wasn't a question of how she beat them all.

Instead, it was a question of how she got it through the wind against it. That was the mystery. According to everything Jiraiya had told him, wind was supposed to spank lightning in a direct confrontation.

Maybe it was because Thunderbolt had been an attack directly meant to cause harm, and Whirlwind had been something more of a supplementary technique. Meh, he didn't know. Even if it had been stupid in theory, it wasn't stupid if it actually worked. This had worked, therefore it was not a stupid idea.

But the woman that had attacked them was gone.

…Well that could have gone worse all things considered. After Naruto had broken her little smoke and mirrors trick she had more than likely taken a powder and decided to leave the job to her Murkrow unit to just take out everything on the tower and dig through whatever was left when they hit the ground.

It would have been messy to sift through their bodies after they did, but the fall would have killed them. The top floor of the tower was 100 feet in the air, and the Whirlwind would have blown them even higher before dumping them over the side.

Once everything seemed to be all over, they freed themselves from Ariados' web and sat down against the spire, returning their Pokémon to their Poke Balls for the time being.

Letting out a sigh, Janine set her head back against the surface behind them, shutting her eyes as they looked out over the Sprout Tower grounds that were kept by the monks; the long wooden bridge that spanned across the lake leading to and from the tower.

It was so peaceful out there that no one that hadn't been there would have known that a battle had taken place. They would at sunrise after people came to the tower and saw all of the tiles stripped from every tower eave as well as the chunks missing from it. For now though, it was quiet again.

"…So you stole the Master Ball huh?" Naruto asked rhetorically, slowly turning his head Janine's way to give her a look, "And you didn't even use it yet?"

Oh. Yeah. That was kind of why this whole thing happened to begin with wasn't it? She hadn't been anticipating trouble from anyone other than Silph Co. for taking the ball, and she was certain that the woman that had fought them didn't have anything to do with that company.

Taking her bag off and fishing through it she pulled out the object in question; a Poke Ball that was purple on top with pink studs and an 'm' emblazoned just above the focus point of the ball. It didn't look that much cooler than a Poke Ball, but then again they had just gotten attacked for it so it had to be worth something.

"I guess we actually do have to get an express trip to Olivine City from Falkner if this is how it's going to go," Janine mumbled lowly, "…We've got to head back to Falkner tomorrow and actually ask him this time Babyface," She heard Naruto let out an annoyed whine and reached over to pat his leg as she pulled the Egg incubator out of her bag, "I know, I know. But it's a mission we took and we're responsible even if it was just something to do to pass the time in Johto."

"I know. If I had Kamisori on me we wouldn't have to go back," Naruto said, pouting at having to roll back around to Violet City Pokémon Gym, "Where the hell is Ero-sennin with my goddamn flyer?" Really, he expected a call from Jiraiya by now, with the man taunting him about where he was in comparison.

Well on the bright side, even with all the trouble they'd gotten into already they still hadn't fought a Gym Leader yet… so at least they were following Erika's rules.

But seriously, who the hell had that lady been?

XxX

"It was entertaining," The woman who had attacked Naruto and Janine recounted over a portable communication device. As a pair of Murkrow flew she sat on a strap held between their legs to support her whilst in flight, "Your intelligence was good."

"_Well after Team Rocket fell apart in Saffron City, it's not hard to break down who could have possibly taken the Master Ball. It had been in inventory before Silph Co. headquarters had been taken over and it had been gone once control was restored. None of the Team Rocket members were allowed anywhere near the area they would have had to go to in order to take it, so it had to be one of the two visitors that ruined everything for them. One of those visitors is rather notorious for her past penchant for thievery."_

"You make it sound like breaking it all down was so easy Will."

"_Because it was. But it sounds like fighting them is far more difficult than finding them. How was it Karen, aside from entertaining?"_

Karen laughed and held up her broken mask that Naruto had hit instead of her actual face, "Dangerous. I didn't bring any of my main team aside from Umbreon. If I'd have had to fight a prolonged battle I'm not sure I could have won and made it out with the ball."

"_Well we have plenty of time before things are set in motion. I'm working on getting things started now. Just as long as we get the Master Ball eventually. It's the key to actually accomplishing what we need."_

"I know," Karen said, running a hand back through her long silver locks as she watched the countryside pass by underneath her, "Just remember, we have to do this right. Getting the Master Ball is important, but to be overly aggressive with those kids will set them on our trail. Even if we're better prepared than Giovanni's Team Rocket was, why incite an enemy that we don't have to fight?"

"_Because you already antagonized them and they won't have their guard down again,"_ The man, Will, informed her over their connection, _"Now tell me why you don't think it's a good idea to simply set our obstacles against them and take our pick to take them down when the time is right."_

"Because we won't wear them down, and I've already seen how they fight," Karen explained casually, "Trainers like that, they'll never fight the same battle twice, so seeing any more than I already have is useless. If we waste time and resources chasing after only two people now we'll just be delaying getting things started, and if the Elite Four find out what we're doing before we get too far we'll never survive long enough for the Master Ball to even be necessary."

"…_That would be for the best, to set things in motion as soon as possible. After we do and the dominoes begin to fall, Johto will start coming apart at the seams, and they'll never see what we're doing coming until it's too late."_

"Well in that case I'll head to the Ruins of Alph now."

"_Hmm… no need. I'm already there."_

Karen went silent with her mouth slightly opened in surprise before she grinned amusedly, "Why Will, I do believe you've been teasing me for this entire conversation."

"_Maybe. Make sure our other arrangements are coming along. I'll finish things here and meet up with you after I'm done."_

XxX

(The Next Morning – Violet City Pokémon Gym)

"So this is Vermillion City's Gym Leader? Really?"

"No, he's not a Gym Leader. He's just filling in a spot when the tournament happens."

"Wow. They could have just forfeited one point to Johto in advance and spared putting this poor guy in danger."

Naruto didn't know what he felt would piss him off more, actually being in the midst of the conversation between Janine and Falkner and having to deal with that guy again, or what he was actually doing while that conversation was taking place on the rooftop of the Gym, which was waiting inside.

Waiting inside didn't seem like a bad thing, except that word had spread since the previous day that Naruto was allegedly the replacement for Kanto's vacant spot in the 8-on-8 tournament that was supposed to be filled by Vermillion City's now deceased trainer Lt. Surge.

"If it was Surge I'd be worried, you know, with the electricity and everything," One of the more senior members of the Gym said, arms crossed as he mean-mugged over at the blond ninja, "This kid doesn't really look that tough."

Eye twitching as he heard the smattering of comments by the bird keeping trainers stopping and conversing over him as he sat and waited, Naruto reached for the Poke Gear on his wrist and dialed one of his contacts, waiting a second for the call to go through.

"_Hello?"_

"Yeah, Erika?" Naruto said, staring straight ahead at the Violet City underling trainers that were gawking openly at him, not even bothering to try and hide it as if they were doing something else, "You said I can't fight any Gym Leaders because it'll cause problems right?"

"_It's more like it's because I want to keep something of a secret tactical advantage…"_ The grass princess muttered under her breath before speaking up clearly and brightly, _"Yes. I'd consider it a personal favor for my reputation and would really, really appreciate it if you refrained from doing battle with any of Kanto's Gym Leaders until the tournament."_

"Just them though right? I can fight anyone else?"

"…_I don't like the way you worded that question."_

"Nah, I was just asking you if I could fight at all or I just had to spend four months turning the other cheek or something."

Silence reigned over the line as Erika seemed to be seriously thinking about how to answer that question properly. On one hand, if someone attacked Naruto or pressed him to fight he had every right to defend himself and his honor. On the other hand, she was certain that he wouldn't have called her and asked that specific question if he didn't already have someone in particular that he wanted to take a chunk out of.

She'd had enough time with him to know that this was the kind of person he was; brutishly considerate.

And if she answered the wrong way she might have been opening Pandora's Box on Johto.

…

…

Screw Johto. They challenged her ability as Kanto's supervisor of Gym Leaders after the whole Team Rocket mess by calling for this whole Gym Leader Tournament to test them. For the next few months Naruto was their problem. Maybe then they'd get a taste of what she had to deal with?

She would have loved to see them try to keep things under some semblance of control during a crisis like the one in Kanto. Maybe then they would find out just how hard it was to run damage control on a regional scale.

When was the last time Johto had a catastrophe? Well until they actually had one they could have themselves a Naruto instead, the next best thing. If the tournament was Kanto's test from Johto, Naruto would be Johto's from Kanto for the next few months.

"_Yes you can fight. How else would you train? But not against Gym Leaders for petty pride. Feel free to do so however if you have a good reason."_

"Like an 'oh shit, half of the Gym Leaders in the region are part of Team Rocket' kind of reason?"

"_I'll leave that to your discretion. I trust your judgment Naruto."_

Naruto could have sworn that he could basically see the devious smirk on Erika's face from the sound of her voice on the phone. But no, he was definitely misreading the vibe behind her words right? Someone that pleasant didn't have a vindictive side like that, did they?

Either way, she'd already hung up on her end, and before she had she'd given him the green light to more or less do whatever the hell he wanted as long as he and Janine didn't wind up locking horns with a Gym Leader in a glorified pissing contest.

…Which meant that these guys were fair game.

"Show of hands," Naruto requested out of the blue, "Who thinks they can beat me?" Well over a dozen hands went up, and a rather vicious smirk crossed Naruto's face, "Which one of you said Surge was tougher than me?" The man in question stepped forward, "Yeah, you're first."

After all, this was just training.

XxX

Sitting on a spectator's bench on the rooftop battlefield, Janine fixed Falkner, who stood in front of her, with a harsh staredown. Arms and legs crossed, head lowered as she glared at him, that was a no-nonsense expression if he'd ever seen one.

Yeah, he screwed up last time.

Before he could even finish opening his mouth to speak, a kunai planted itself right at his feet and Janine preempted him, "I don't want to hear any b.s. apology, I don't want to start a fight, I don't want to be here, I don't even really want to look at you after yesterday," She said, "I just want to ask you a favor and feel free to say yes or no, but if I don't suck it up and ask you I wouldn't be doing right by a good man that asked me and Babyface for our help."

Okay, that was straightforward.

He _really_ screwed up the last time. She wasn't even trying to be cordial anymore.

"I have a Pokémon Egg that I need to get to the person that lent it to Professor Elm in Olivine City. It's my mission that he paid us for," Janine explained, "But it's dangerous to risk carrying around something like that when it doesn't belong to us and we're going so far. We were just going to keep going anyway after the last time I tried to ask you, but last night drove home that it was really too dangerous to take it on-foot the long way. Can you help us?"

No matter what her favor had been, Falkner's original plan had been to play around with her before accepting whatever it was. He was never planning to turn her down, no matter what her favor would have been. But by now he knew that she had no patience left for his brand of 'playing' and would only meet it with outright hostility from then on forward. They weren't kids any longer.

She'd play around with Naruto though. They argued all the time. They argued coming through the doors to the Gym, Naruto insisting that she didn't have to even face Falkner again and her telling him that she knew what she was doing. There was never any malicious intent between them.

Janine was a cheeky girl that liked confrontation. She always had been. He figured that was the key to getting close to her.

He thought that it was her preferred way of interacting with others, and even after being disproven of that notion it brought up the conundrum of why she didn't mind fighting with Naruto. They actually enjoyed fighting with one another.

He didn't understand. He wanted to, he thought he did, but he didn't.

"I can get some flying Pokémon ready for you by this evening," Falkner told her, agreeing to her request with no hijinks, "You can leave tomorrow morning."

Janine was surprised that he acquiesced so easily, but didn't let it show on her face, only letting her previously stern countenance break out of gratitude, "Thank you."

Falkner just shook his head and turned away from her, running a hand through the hair hanging over his face to smooth it out of the way for just a moment, "…You know, I'm in love with you."

The girl's eyes went wide at the despondent admission. First and foremost it was a complete surprise to her simply from the vitriol that had oftentimes been sent her way. Secondly, he didn't sound the least bit excited about it. Didn't you normally get excited or something when you were admitting something of that nature to the person in question?

"I… did not know that," Janine said sheer astonishment, "…If you did then why have you been treating me like trash for the last eight or nine years? I don't even remember what I did to you. Did I do anything to you?"

"No, I liked you back then too," Falkner said, taking a seat on the bench next to her, "We were little so it was the whole 'girls are icky' thing at first, but when I saw that you actually liked to argue… I just never let it get any better."

"I don't like arguing."

"You do. You do it with the other guy all the time."

"I'm just playing around with Babyface."

"Like how I was trying to play around with you."

"Falkner…" Janine said in a bit of exasperation, "Babyface and I, it's not the same thing like with us. Whenever you said anything it was always the most condescending, hurtful stuff, cutting me down for no reason," She said, "Later on it was always about how my choice of Pokémon suck, or how I wasn't travelling with my dad because he realized I wasn't worth it and dropped me. And even a few months ago you'd lord being a Gym Leader first over me. You'd say personal insults. Someone has to have some real self-esteem problems if they can love someone that treats them like that."

When she argued with Naruto, it never got personal or hurtful. Not after the earlier days of their time together. It was always just a circle of them cracking on each other and was more of a game to see who could make the other one hesitate to say something next.

It was fun. She had fun with him, no matter what they were doing.

"I'm sorry, but I don't ever see a situation where I end up with you," She said quietly with a shrug, feeling awkward. She'd never had to let anyone down before, let alone someone she'd loathed until a minute or two ago, "I don't know what else to say."

"You don't have to say anything," Falkner said, standing back up, "It was a virtual no-shot, but if I didn't say it after the last time you'd have probably never spoken to me again after asking me for the favor. Either way, I just have one question for you. What is it about him?"

"Who?"

"The Naruto kid. Or should I say 'Babyface' instead?"

"That's just a nickname."

"That's a damn endearing nickname."

"He hates that name!"

"It doesn't look like it."

"…Well he used to."

"Stop dodging the question," Falkner said, waving the whole thing off, "What is it about the guy that you like so much? I just don't see what it is."

After seeing that he was dead serious, as if he could discover what it was he himself didn't have about himself that kept him from having a chance, Janine sat and truly contemplated the answer to that question.

What did it matter if he knew what she liked about Naruto? There wasn't a realistic chance of the two of them getting together. Even if they wanted to, Naruto was going to be gone from the continent entirely, back to parts unknown of the Elemental Nations.

Was it because they had fun together?

Was it because he was a ninja like her?

Was it because he knew everything about her?

Was it because the two of them had been through so much together?

Because he'd shouldered her burden with her, given her someone to support her when she needed it, and had never asked anything of her in return?

Because he'd kept her from becoming like her father?

Because he was the only person in her life, including her father, that simply accepted her as she was, even with her baggage and deficiencies of personality?

"What do I like about Babyface? I actually think about that question a lot," Janine said as she stood up to head off back downstairs. By the time she reached the elevator and stood on the pressure point to send her back down, she hadn't answered yet. Once it began to descend she turned back to Falkner and winked at him, "And I'll let you know exactly what the answer is after I find out myself."

For today, she was going to go do something or go somewhere in or near Violet City with Naruto to kill time before tomorrow. Violet City had other notable landmarks nearby other than Sprout Tower if she remembered correctly, because they definitely weren't going back there again after the previous evening.

After the mechanically whirring lift took her down out of his sight, Falkner pressed his hand to his mouth and kissed it off in the direction that she'd once been standing in before leaning back on the bench and looking up at the sky, "When the tournament rolls around 'Nina, I'll show you that I meant what I said. And if you don't have an answer by then, I'm going for you for real."

The cat was out of the bag now, so there was no more reason to play games with how he felt. He needed to give her some space to let it all sink in and take away her preconceived notions about their time together in the past. If Naruto didn't like Janine the way he knew she liked him it was better for Falkner's second chance at starting over with her.

And if he did?

That would just be too bad, because Naruto would have to earn her as long as he was around.

"I saw 'Nina first Uzumaki."

…Not 'Little 'Nina', because she wasn't exactly little anymore. None of them were.

* * *

><p><strong>Eight of eight, suck it! Boom! I want my prize! <strong>

**Ahem… that was odd. I seemed to have lost my composure for a moment there. I'm just really hyped up right now and those of you following multiple stories of mine probably know why. **

**This is going to be a good weekend. I won my challenge, I had a decent week in work, a good day in training, and on Saturday I get to see Henderson v. Pettis II. The first one was great, and I'm excited for this fight.**

**Sure I'm still as broke as a joke, but you've got to take life's victories when they come.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you next time.**

**Kenchi out.**


	22. Fear of the Unown

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. I met this Russian guy that could do the damn Poké Rap. All of them. It was the greatest two minutes of my 2013, including getting my Bachelor's Degree. Fucking incredible. Sometimes it's the simple things in life, you know?

**Chapter 22: Fear of the Unown**

* * *

><p>Falkner would have the bird Pokémon ready for their departure tomorrow. That was what he said. Janine had been pleasantly surprised. It had been relatively painless for her to get her request out, and he had accepted just like that. Maybe they were growing up after all?<p>

Someone might not have however, and while she wasn't pointing any fingers, she was fairly certain that the multitude of beaten-up Violet Gym trainers and bird Pokémon that had been strewn haphazardly throughout the facility had been the work of her traveling partner.

There had been scorch marks all over the place, so chances were he'd liberally borrowed the fire-spitting abilities of Ranbouen to get the job done.

Naruto hadn't said anything about it, but carried himself with a very pleased air about him.

"Did you have fun?" Janine wound up asking him cheekily as they departed the Gym, "I thought Erika said that we couldn't fight?"

"She said we couldn't fight Gym Leaders," Naruto answered in return, having called Erika before stepping up to the challenge of the Gym members, "She said we still had to train after all, and they didn't think I was strong enough to fight in a tournament of Leaders, so I had to prove I was a good enough trainer didn't I?"

They claimed that one Gym Leader's Pokémon could be enough to beat most of them and their Pokémon. How about all of them and their Pokémon then? Ranbouen was simply too fast for them. Flying-type Pokémon as his enemy or not, he was still an Arcanine, and Pokémon rarely got much faster than an Arcanine, especially a well-trained one.

In hindsight, after hearing that Falkner needed time to prepare the Pokémon he was going to use to help them get to Olivine City, Janine figured that the time might be delayed a few hours more due to Naruto beating the daylights out of all of his help.

Either way, that left the rest of the day for Janine and Naruto with nothing else to do. They had already gone to Sprout Tower, and after the events of the day before they were both certain that they would not be welcome in that place again anytime soon. The inhabitants were monks, but not of the forgiving type; more of the warrior variety.

There were more things to do though, and as loathe as she was to act like a tourist there was one place nearby that she definitely wanted to visit with an almost childlike desire about her. It was enough to even get Naruto excited enough to follow her out to just a few miles west of the city for a quaint, fun little day trip.

At least until he learned where they were going at least. He then promptly deflated.

"Ruins?" Naruto questioned as they walked along the sunny Route 36. It was a beautiful day, and he could see several better ways to spend it than hanging out at a dusty old place like that, "Aw, come on really? Why?"

"I've always wanted to check out the Ruins of Alph," Janine happily admitted, a serious spring in her step, "Can you imagine what kinds of things you can find there? We could be famous! Or rich! Or famous _and_ rich! That'd be the best!"

Naruto neglected to mention that she was already famous by virtue of being a Gym Leader, but was more concerned with how they were going to find anything. Ruins were just that; ruined. He didn't feel like making clones to dig through rubble all day.

He could, make no mistake about it. That didn't mean that he wanted to. As far as he was concerned that was 100% D-rank work. He was on an S-rank assignment at the moment damn it!

"This will be the instrument of our success!" Janine declared to the skies as she held up a pair of strange bent rods that didn't seem to be the slightest bit special other than the little box attached to one of them.

"So… are those metal detectors or something?" Naruto asked. He thought they looked like bent coat hangers or something along those lines.

"They're parts to an Itemfinder," Janine said, holding the pieces of equipment up, "I mean, it does find metal, but it can search for any kind of object really."

"…How?"

"What?"

"Like, what does it check for?" Naruto elaborated with a squint to his eyes, "There's no radar or anything, so how does it even let you know that it found anything? And where'd you even get 'em?"

They looked kind of like the rods that people would use to search for water in dry places. Those stupid divining rods that people got ripped off for back home. Naruto's skepticism was all over his face as he did absolutely nothing to hide it.

Janine blushed slightly at the deadpan expression from him making her feel like an idiot, especially since she almost showed out in regards to her excitement over visiting the Ruins of Alph, "D-Don't worry about it Babyface. You'll see how it works when we get there."

Gah! She had been one step short of gushing like a little girl about to head to an amusement park. There must have been some sort of deity on her side that Naruto hadn't called her out to razz her a bit on that one. Either that or kicking some butt earlier must have dampened his need to pick fun at her for the time being.

Still, Janine stood by her opinion. This was going to be fun. Naruto could be all negative about it if he wanted to. She'd wager that by sundown he'd be grinning and chatting with her about what he did that day that had been so cool. It was part of what made them click. It was just so difficult to keep him down, and they tended to feed off of the other's mood regardless.

Thus they made their way to the heart of the world-famous Ruins of Alph.

A narrow valley pass several miles long and surrounded by forested cliffs served as a host to extremely weathered, aged yellow-stoned buildings built into the walls on both sides. There were slight signs of stone placed into the ground, serving as ancient roads in their heyday, but now simply serving as reminders now of what had once been.

Up, down, and all around. That was where Naruto and Janine searched, following those damn Itemfinders that couldn't bring up a strong signal to save their lives.

They were ninjas, not treasure hunters. Janine simply adored finding rare and valuable things however, and she had for as long as he had known her. At least she was doing it legally now, and at least it was making her happy. Even when she groused over their lack of locating anything valuable, it was obvious that she was enjoying herself.

For that, it was worth moving a bunch of musty rocks around and digging up dirt all afternoon long.

Sitting on a pile of rubble, Naruto unscrewed a container of water that he'd packed in his supplies while Janine continued to hunt, sifting through the bottom of the heap he sat at the top of, "Are we done looking yet?"

"Not a chance," Janine said, doing her level best to keep the portion of the pile she'd excavated into from falling down on top of her, "Just listen to this thing!"

*DING! DING! DING!*

"It's going crazy here!" The girl insisted, "We're totally going to find something here in this spot. Come down and help me if you want to get out of here faster. Call out Ranbouen if you want it to go even faster," Though she didn't know what else he expected to do in the meantime after they left. They couldn't rightfully leave until the next morning at the earliest.

Sighing to himself, Naruto took in a mouthful of water before jumping down and landing behind his closest Kanto-based friend. Turning back around to giver Janine some assistance, Naruto went wide-eyed and spat all over the ground.

One or both of them apparently forgot that she was wearing a short-skirt, either that or Janine had not expected Naruto to jump down right behind her. Luckily for him she was too engrossed in her searching for plunder to notice that her friend had perhaps the best upskirt view of her that he'd probably ever get.

Naruto had a Poke Ball in his hand but refrained from acting, instead staring for more than a fair share of seconds. That girl was _so_ grown up now. And of course she'd wear fuchsia somewhere wouldn't she? Why it was on the thinnest fabric that she could possibly possess, covering the most private of all places on her body was beyond him.

Damn it, he up and disappeared for nine months and then he came back to a very fine young Gym Leader friend. He really needed to stop staring, he knew that he did, but Jiraiya's influence ran deep. One didn't get away mentally unscathed with nine months of having ideas for Icha-Icha bounced off of him.

"Babyface? What's the matter? Call out Ranbouen so he can-," When Naruto didn't speak or move, Janine turned around and saw him red-facedly ogling her. Wondering what the big deal was, she suddenly remembered what she was wearing and spoke up in disbelief, "…Really?"

Pervert.

Without saying anything else she simply turned her position over and sat cross-legged on the ground, patiently waiting for Naruto to snap out of the outright distraction that she had been the one to cause him. It was kind of flattering, but it was enough to outrage her as well. Digging for treasure had been forgotten.

Eventually, Naruto's eyes refocused on reality and he realized that he'd been found out upon being faced with Janine's straightforward look. Naruto was not the type to own up to what he'd done the way Jiraiya would, but he also wasn't one for outright lying and saying that he didn't get as full a shot of her backside as he could with her clothes remaining on.

"Well?" Janine asked expectantly.

Naruto blinked and looked around at nothing before shrugging his shoulders, "Well what?"

"You were staring for an awfully long time," Teasing Naruto proved to be more effective than confronting him directly. He'd fight back normally, but this way he'd fluster himself into a complete mess. It was more fulfilling watching him break his own brain than trying to hit him, "…So I was just wondering, is it good?"

"Huh? Is what good?"

"My butt," The purple-clad kunoichi said, her face completely unflinching, which made the query all the more ludicrous coming from her, "You were staring pretty hard."

Naruto tried his best. Really, he had. However, being bluntly presented with such a question, blood didn't merely trickle from his nose, it shot out as if a faucet had been quickly turned on and off. He maintained an upright position despite this.

"What are we talking about your ass for!?" Naruto shouted in return as he rubbed his nose and upper lip clear of blood.

Janine gave him a dry look in return, getting up on her knees to give her own backside a hearty slap, "I'm just saying, you seemed interested. Now call out your Arcanine would you? Or else I could have you gauge where you think my butt ranks on a scale of one-to-te-."

"Ranbouen!" Naruto called out, summoning his first Pokémon from his orb of captivity, "Dig! And be careful buddy, take it slow!"

Janine moved aside with a smirk on her face as she watched Ranbouen barrel into the pile of rubble, clawing through it with his sizeable paws as he did what Naruto asked of him. Between herself and Naruto, the only sound was of Ranbouen growling and chunking up pieces of rock with his crushing paws and claws, hurling it back out of the hole he was creating.

'I'd rather have her try to hit me,' Naruto thought to himself after a few moments of being allowed to think about Janine's reaction. Now she knew that he thought she was pretty nice to look at she would be damn near merciless with that kind of information.

Ugh, it didn't matter. All that mattered at the moment was that he had to stop thinking about her backside! And all of the things he'd do to it… damn Jiraiya and his freaking book straight to the depths of hell. If Naruto could see a cave get dropped on that pervert's head for how he'd affected his idle thoughts over the last nine months it'd probably make his day.

The awkward (on Naruto's side) silence ended when they both heard some scuttle coming through the surrounding bushes and trees. It could have either been a Pokémon or a person. Either way, if it was going to get uppity or aggressive it was going to catch a beatdown.

"Well hello there treasure hunters extraordinaire!"

It was a person. A girl person. A girl person that they knew from the sound of her voice, and from the sight of her once she worked her way into their small clearing area, using her hands to brush leaves off of her black dress.

…What was Green doing there?

It took her a moment to look up from the attention she'd been putting on her lovely attire to notice who she had stumbled upon, but when she did she did a double-take between them, "J-Janine? Naruto? What the hell?" One was a new Gym Leader, and the other had been M.I.A. for most of a year, "Huh, you guys are a long way from home."

"I was a long way from home to start with," Naruto said before taking this opportunity to change the opportunity, "Why are you in Johto?"

"Hah, Kanto's totally played out," Green said, waving everything off. She didn't need to drop the real reason that she'd come to Johto. It had a little something to do with her past, in more ways than one, and it partially involved Naruto anyway. Speaking of whom, she actually took a moment to drink him in. A long moment, "…Wow. Nobody said you got so-."

"'-Got so' what exactly?" Janine interjected, still having a bit of distaste for Green despite having fought alongside her against Team Rocket. Sure, they were both something of thieves, but their thieving habits were completely different.

Green realized that she'd gotten close enough to Naruto as to where he'd felt the need to lean back away from her for personal space, "Oh, nothing. Anyway, since you're here and since ninja-girl is who she is, I assume you're treasure hunting."

"Yeah?"

That was what she wanted to hear, as she reached into the bag she had with her and pulled out two bent metal rods with a small electronic box attached to one, "Well you'll need an Itemfinder won't you? It's just pure luck that I've got some to spare for sale."

Janine smiled and held up the two pieces of the one that she'd been using the entire time, "Sorry, we've got one already. It works like a charm too, since it got us this far and Babyface is using his Arcanine to get us the rest of the way in."

Ooh, right before she could really get into her whole saleswoman spiel. Maybe there was still something to salvage though, "…Matching his-and-hers sets then?"

Naruto took the Itemfinder out of Green's hands before she could even try to stop him. After a second he squinted at her with a frown, "These are fakes. The other ones actually had some weight to 'em," Finding a bell on the back of the electric box, Naruto hit it, causing it to ding with every touch and mimic the sound of a real Itemfinder locating something, "How many of these did you sell?"

"Hey, it's tough out there!" Green said, taking her shoddy merchandise back with an affronted look, "I've got to take care of myself somehow, and battling on the roads for cash isn't my thing at all."

"So you sell fake Itemfinders?"

"Real ones are expensive! Even the off-brand ones!"

And besides, that was just one side hustle. Fake Itemfinders were so cheap to make, and after making her sales she could get out of dodge before the mark she sold her false wares to could realize that they'd been had. It was a great way to make money in a place like the Ruins of Alph.

Of course, the last time she'd been running a scam or some sort of underhanded moneymaking venture in the presence of the ninja pair, they'd left her quite thoroughly defeated. Friends or not, allies in the struggle against Team Rocket in Kanto or not, they didn't seem to have a lot of patience for her cons.

This one wasn't directed at them though, so they didn't really care.

"Anyway," Green said with a distracting cough, trying to redirect the conversation, "What are you two doing here of all places?"

"Training trip/Janine's taking a vacation," Were the respective answers from Janine and Naruto who then glared at each other for their conflicting answers. Naruto's entire excursion to the continent was a training trip, so his answer had to be understandably more precise. Janine didn't like it however because it made her look lazy.

It didn't matter that she _was_ treating it something like a vacation. It didn't have to be labeled as such.

Without saying a word in argument, their glares at one another became intense enough to prompt a stubborn clashing of foreheads pushing against one another. Really, over something so small and inconspicuous. Who fought over something that miniscule? And they didn't even have to scream at each other or hurl insults back and forth to have a tiff.

According to dramas and whatnot, the only people who did anything like that were usually…

"That's so adorable!" Green gushed at the sight of the two of them butting heads, shocking them out of their silent conflict. She had quite the whimsical blush going as her mind worked in overdrive, "Oh God, Naruto I didn't know you were so… so… romantic!"

Naruto could only squint his eyes at the auburn-haired swindler in return, "Eh?"

It was the only answer he had in the chamber, set to fire.

He could play dumb all he wanted to though, and Janine could look as befuddled as she liked to. Green had read enough romance novels and seen enough shows on TV to know better, "Think about it. An old friend disappears off of the face of the planet for the better part of a year, only to come back around when life has settled down for everyone who'd known him."

"_Old_ friend?" Janine repeated with a raised brow, "We knew him for a few months. He took off for longer than he was actually around."

"Oi!"

"I'm just saying Babyface."

"Both of you shut up, I'm not done," Green snapped before returning to her daydream of real life, "Anyway, right after he returns, he whisks away the woman closest to him, and despite her responsibilities they run away together to a faraway place. It doesn't matter though, as long as they have each other!"

Both Naruto and Janine's faces were frozen in silent, screaming, red-faced horror. Between the upskirt view and now this, compounded on Janine's side with her private discussion with Falkner, both of them had been effectively broken.

Green clicked her tongue and shook her head, calming herself down in the end, "Still, you could have taken her somewhere sexier than the Ruins of Alph for a romantic getaway. Ick. What's wrong with you?"

Janine pointed a shaky, armguard-clad finger in Green's direction, "I-! You-! He-! You've gotta be-!" She stammered hopelessly through her mortification, "…Romantic getaway!? We're looking for artifacts to sell!"

"-Which is your favorite hobby in the world, and someone in love with you would know that," Green added on with a smirk as if this all just proved her point, "Where else would you rather be taken? I dare you to name five places."

-Diving for underwater treasures off of the coast of Lilycove City in Hoenn.  
>-Somehow getting into gorgeous Tin Tower to snoop around and take in the architecture.<br>-An actual island getaway just off the coast of Cianwood City.

…Damn it she couldn't think of anymore that she'd put ahead of the ruins!

The Ruins of Alph were definitely near the top of the list though, make no mistake about it whatsoever! She liked the legend of the place and she liked the chance of finding something that would make her rich.

"This isn't a getaway!" Naruto disputed frantically, as if something were at stake, "Trust me! It's training and survival! Between Ero-sennin taking Kamisori, getting the Egg we've got to Olivine City, and jerks like Silver and the lady in the mask ducking around the corner to take another shot at us this isn't for fun!"

That didn't change the fact that for the most part it _was_ fun, but that would only have served to kill his point had he admitted such.

Something in Naruto's tirade had made Green go pale, and it was only right that she did. Yeah, his little diatribe had gotten to her. Good. For once yelling at someone actually worked on them. It was a banner day to be Uzumaki Naruto.

It wasn't the way that Naruto had said anything, it was what he'd said in particular. It was one small, overlooked facet; a throwaway portion of his rant, that stabbed into Green's head and heart. She had been taken aback, and she felt the need to press forward with it.

The conversation on her part wasn't fun needling any longer.

Before she could open her mouth to begin traipsing down the rabbit hole of her intended topic, Ranbouen rushed out of the hole he'd been digging in the pile of rubble and butted his canine snout against Naruto's shoulder to get his attention. A happy rubbing of fur and some spirited words of gratitude were the rewards for the large Arcanine.

Janine peeked inside of the freshly dug hole and let out a whistle. It had taken a few minutes of careful work, but Ranbouen had done a top-notch job. In the low light coming in from the hole she could see clear through to where things opened up into some sort of hallway with old-timey brick comprising the walls.

Embarrassment long gone, Janine grinned and quickly snagged Naruto's wrist to pull him along with her inside, "Come on, we've gotta see what we can find while there's still light."

Naruto tried digging in his heels, but unless he felt like sticking to the ground with chakra his feet simply dragged along the freshly loosened dirt of the tunnel floor, "…Ninja princess," Naruto stage-muttered under his breath as he returned Ranbouen to his Poke Ball.

Janine's eyes widened slightly, but in the almost nonexistent light she was able to initially play it off as if she hadn't quite picked up what he'd said, "Eh? D'ya say something Babyface?"

No way. She wasn't going to pull a Kakashi and ignore him. She didn't have the tenure with him to be allowed for that to slide, "You heard me."

"I don't even know how to respond to that, you're so off-base."

"Pfft, whatever!" If she wanted reasons for it, Naruto was more than happy to present them for her, "You're a big, important Gym Leader and you were always going to be one after your dad was, plus you live in a huge mansion, and you've got dozens of people that are supposed to listen to everything you say, _and _you like shiny things-."

"-_Everybody_ likes shiny things! That doesn't make me some touchy princess-type."

Green simply watched the two argue their way into the uncovered ruin site and bit her lip before following along. Her friends had come across something she'd felt was important enough to get some more information on, and she wouldn't feel right until she found out just what had transpired during one of Naruto's Johto encounters.

'Silver… please tell me you didn't look for Naruto because of _that_,' She thought to herself as she headed inside. Dusty old ruins weren't exactly her ideal place for a grilling session, but if that was where she had to be to find out if Naruto had really seen Silver, Green would follow.

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Ruins of Alph)

"This is really the first step to the master's life's work," Karen said, leaning against a weathered statue vaguely resembling some sort of distorted letter, "…It's pretty boring honestly."

"That's because it hasn't been activated yet," Her compatriot was a strangely attired purple-haired young man wearing formal magenta clothes and a black dress vest, along with a ruffled collar and a white, grinning porcelain theater mask, "Maybe if our friends here worked a little bit faster… but then again, the Ruins of Alph have held their secret for centuries. You can't expect 'the help' to be the ones destined to do so."

The Team Rocket underlings that were busy scouring every inch of the known ruin temples bristled upon hearing such a slight, but knew better than to say anything at all. Power was absolute when it came to Team Rocket, and after Giovanni's death and the power vacuum in Johto that followed they were ripe for those with strength to take full control.

The masked pair and their two allies that ran the day-to-day workings of Team Rocket in Johto were simply too strong to fight back against. Making money wasn't their goal. None of Team Rocket knew quite what their goal was, but they were the strongest, and they were extremely dangerous.

They were still being paid, and even if they didn't get what the new leadership's endgame was, they would do as they were told. Money was money after all.

Karen let out a laugh and threw her hair back as she covered her face with her own white mask, "You have to admit, it's so much better being in charge of so many now though instead of working with just the four of us and the master. I hate grunt work. I see myself as more of-."

"-An executive?"

"No, no, let's leave that title to Sham and Carl. I think we're a bit above that station."

"The Master Ball though," Will said, getting their conversation back on track, "We still need to procure it to get what we need. I didn't think a new Gym Leader and her friend would be able to fight you off."

Karen shrugged, not offended at all at the unsaid undertone, "They were rather creative in how they chose to deal with my trap. Even if she is relatively new at it, Janine _is_ a Gym Leader, and Uzumaki was enough to destroy the main Kanto branch of Team Rocket."

They had to thank him and the other Pokédex holders for that however, because were it not for Giovanni's death they wouldn't have received such an easy source of manpower.

They would leave a 'thank you' note on Naruto's or Janine's corpse and pin it to their collar after the children were relieved of the Master Ball.

XxX

(Moments Earlier – With Naruto)

The excavated hallway led to a dead-end of a room with an odd, large, ornate pedestal… and not much else. Much to Janine's disappointment there were no temple treasures to be found. The most valuable thing she'd found was an old, weathered Everstone, which wasn't nearly enough to satisfy her.

Green simply stood back and watched her search around with a flashlight while Naruto's focus was situated on the pedestal, and the activity on it that had so thoroughly attracted his attention. She still didn't know quite how to smoothly bring up the topic of Silver, so sitting back and waiting was her best bet. She could show patience, and besides, it was almost cute to watch Naruto grumble and move the pedestal plates around.

"Not that I don't love watching you get outsmarted by ruins," Janine said with a frown as she tossed a useless rock away following her investigation of it, "But I thought we came here to do some real treasure hunting."

"Just keep looking on your own then. You're fine," Naruto said, waving one hand to shoo her away as he continued sliding the plates on the pedestal, "…I can't stop. It's like this crusty old thing is laughing at me 'cuz I can't get it."

The plates all had some sort of design on them, they all moved, and they all seemed like they were meant to be arranged in some sort of pattern, to make something. It was almost like some kind of puzzle. Almost exactly like some kind of puzzle.

"Babyface, that was probably some game that little kids that came to pay respects at the temple played."

"I know, that's why it's pissing me off so much. Doesn't this thing know it's messing with the next Hokage here?"

He couldn't tell why, but there was some sort of… energy to the puzzle. He didn't know what it was, or if he was really even feeling anything at all, but it felt important if nothing else.

"Yeah, still no idea what a Hokage is or why it matters," Janine admitted, her voice echoing as she continued to try a different avenue of searching, "Green? Want to help and go halfsies on anything we find?"

Any help would be good, and a woman driven by money the way Green usually was happened to be a person after her own heart, at least when her drive for money didn't put them at odds with one another. She didn't seem to be paying any attention though, deep in her own thoughts.

Great. So not only had Green basically crashed Janine's date with Naruto, Janine had to keep searching the premises on her own for something good.

…Err, not that this had been intended to be a date anyway, because it wasn't, and she wouldn't give Green the satisfaction of even admitting that it could have been seen as such! Who went on dates in crumbly old ruins? Not her! It was just a day outing, nothing more! And if anyone said otherwise they would be 'politely' told to mind their own business.

Still, thinking of people minding their own business, her thoughts drifted back to Green. She was strangely introspective, which ran at odds as to what one could normally expect. Normally when she was caught thinking deeply it was in the process of finding a method to get over on those around her, but this time she honestly seemed to be reaching inward in contemplation.

It was strange.

Seemingly finally having decided on something, probably her course of action, Green walked over to the closest of her friends in Naruto and tried to speak to him. Maybe the puzzle on the platform occupying his attention would be enough to keep him from clamming up for some reason.

"So, you're up to your old tricks I see," Green started to say, "You've only been in Johto for a little while and you're already starting fights all over the place."

"Hey, we got attacked both times," Naruto explained, tongue sticking out in focus as he moved the plates in front of him. Huh, those few looked like wings when he put them together, "Last night this crazy lady in a mask came at us because of something Janine stole-."

"It was a souvenir!"

She was thoroughly ignored as Naruto continued, "-And the other time, this guy with red hair jumped us out of nowhere for whatever reason," Silver. Naruto was willing to admit that the guy was dangerous, even if he still felt he'd flatten him in a fight. He stole a Totodile from Professor Elm, and he was actually pretty good with it. He couldn't have had it for any longer than a few hours.

A few hours to plan a fight against an opponent that he had to know was stronger than him, an opponent with backup to boot, and he still fought as well as he did.

That kind of grit was respectable. Silver was still an ass in the mind of the Konoha-born ninja, but at least he had Naruto's respect for being tough.

Meanwhile with Green, she shook her head in the near dark, '…I didn't tell Silver about Naruto so that he'd attack him,' She might have known Silver for far longer due to the ordeal both of them had grown up through, but Naruto was still a good person and a good friend, 'I'll find him when we're done here and I'll set all of this straight.'

She wouldn't have her oldest friend trying to kill one of her newest ones for circumstances beyond his control. It was too dangerous a circumstance to leave up in the air. Silver had a knack for Pokémon, and he always had, so a next fight after he knew how strong Naruto was would be extremely perilous.

CLICK!

Green flinched at the echoing sound that had originated from the platform Naruto had been working with, and then covered her ears at his triumphant shout, "Yeah! I did it! I knew I could do it! It was totally easy after I found out I was looking at a wing!"

'A wing?' Green moved forward and looked at the finished product of Naruto's puzzle, only to have her breath hitch in her throat at the sight of it. It was a puzzle of a bird Pokémon, but not just any bird Pokémon. It looked just like a primitive rendering of the bird Pokémon that had changed her life forever.

The one that had kidnapped her from her home years ago.

To Naruto's surprise she sank to her knees and held her head in her hands, "Hey! Hey, Green what's the matter?" She didn't answer, instead she shook, gritting her teeth as hard as she could as she seemed to be fighting off a mental breakdown and losing.

Seeing someone lose it so suddenly was a scary sight. Both Naruto and Janine did their best to console her and calm her down, with Naruto remembering belatedly that Green was afraid of bird Pokémon. It had only come up once against Zapdos, so he'd forgotten about it.

What a rough thing to be afraid of, to the extent that it paralyzed you in place. Bird Pokémon were some of the most abundant kinds in the world. You couldn't go anywhere without running into one of some sort.

Opening his mouth to say something comforting, Naruto found another thing occurring that was wrong.

The floor around the platform he'd been puzzle-solving on simply collapsed away, sending them all falling into the dark abyss below.

Stupid ruins with its stupid weak floors and its stupid bird puzzle that scared Green half to death.

Way to rain on his victory parade universe. Kudos.

XxX

(Johto/Kanto Border – Mt. Silver)

"Ugh, so I guess this is karma for tricking the kid into leaving Konoha for training to begin with," Jiraiya said to no one, "…If Tsunade-hime didn't get the equivalent of a waterfall cave dropped on her head I'm saying that the fates must be sexist."

Jiraiya swore to himself that Lance would be the absolutely last unknown person that he would ever allow to share a campfire with him. So much for being a gracious person and a good host. It nearly got him killed. On the plus side it snapped Kamisori out of whatever had sent the Aerodactyl flying into a blood rage.

"Worst. Vacation. Ever," Jiraiya muttered to himself, dragging himself through a wilderness that rivaled the Safari Zone in severity, only with even more of a touch of danger behind it. Humans still did maintenance and took care of the Safari Zone, but no one did any of the sort here. It was completely untamed, and he could sense why without even trying to.

He could feel all sorts of powerful Pokémon all around, and they were watching him. The only thing that kept them from attacking was the mutual understanding of strength. Due to his longstanding connection with nature, they knew as well that he wasn't one to be trifled with, nor did he seek any sort of conflict.

In turn, Jiraiya knew that he could more than likely hand half of Mt. Silver its ass, but after the trip he'd taken to leave Tohjo Falls without revealing to his attacker that he'd survived, he really didn't feel like fighting the local super-powered fauna.

Aside from that, Naruto's Aerodactyl and the rest of Jiraiya's own Pokémon team were hurt. They needed to rest and heal. None of that would occur if he kept getting into combat situations.

'Sorry brat,' Jiraiya thought to himself as he finally came to a stop underneath a random tree on the grizzled mountain terrain. Pulling the large scroll from his lower back, he set it down on the ground and sat, turning his head up to the quickly darkening sky as dusk drifted into true night, 'My little search for these legendaries keeps on pulling up trouble.'

He didn't want Naruto tangled up in dealing with anyone like that Lance person. Naruto had performed admirably against Team Rocket. Honestly, Jiraiya couldn't have expected a jounin to handle that any better than Naruto had, but one Hyper Beam from a Pokémon of Lance's had obliterated a cave large enough to fully accommodate a running river and a waterfall within it.

…If Jiraiya hadn't been so damned tough… yeesh.

Going still, he shut his eyes to try and grab a quick power nap before finding more secure digs for the night, Jiraiya's eyes snapped open and he quickly raced through the trees to a cliff-side facing west, in the direction of Johto.

He couldn't see anything, but his instincts, just more primal versions of his highly developed Sage Mode senses never lied, especially when he was sitting as still as stone the way he had been just moments before. He couldn't have been more in-tune with the energies flowing through this continent if he'd been buried underground.

There was a massive release of primordial power, miles and miles away.

Something had just happened, far, far away. He had felt it. All of the Pokémon had felt it.

XxX

(Kanto – Saffron City – Saffron City Pokémon Gym)

Life had gone back to its normal monotonous grind for Sabrina after Team Rocket's main power had been obliterated in Kanto. Koga was dead, Lt. Surge was dead, Giovanni was dead. She would miss the freedom of doing whatever she wanted to, but cutting her losses and accepting punishment from Kanto's Gym Leaders in exchange for keeping control of her own Gym had been the only smart move to make.

So it was back to beating upstart challengers, training the budding psychics that came to her to learn from the best, and yadda-yadda-yadda.

Which was why she hadn't been prepared to feel such a release of ancient energy that it brought her to her knees on the spot.

The headache that came with the release of such a sensitive energy for someone like her was almost unbearable. She hadn't felt pain of this sort inside of her mind in her entire life. Whatever was causing her own psychic power to lash out at her had to have been an omen. A horrible, horrible omen.

XxX

(Johto – Ruins of Alph – Underground Level)

A cold snap washed over Karen to the point that her teeth ground together involuntarily. She was no psychic, but she knew full well that something was… off.

With as many years as she had spent in the 'employ' of her master, executing her missions for him to get his plans into position to finally begin, the dark Pokémon user had by then been accustomed to knowing when the freaky events they instigated started getting a bit too hot to stay around any longer

Echoing quietly through the deep confines of the underground temple, yells of terror and cries of pain sounded out through the premises. Yes, something was very off. Screams of Team Rocket members telling something to 'get away', and claiming that there were 'too many of them' was simply the most obvious and glaring sign of this.

Still, what had set things into motion? None of the idiot Rocket grunts were ballsy enough to poke around anywhere unsafe enough to hide the secret of the ruins, and they weren't smart or intrepid enough to really try and search outside of what they could already see.

When she turned to Will to try and get some insight on what was happening, she froze and gawked.

"What the-? Will, you're bleeding!" Karen exclaimed upon seeing the red liquid ooze from underneath the white mask of her partner.

Despite this, Will stood tall and removed his white mask, revealing a black masquerade mask covering his eyes and blood dripping from his nose. A large grin on his face despite the obvious psychic discomfort he felt, "If whoever triggered the awakening of the Unown manages to survive… I think we should send them a 'thank you' card, don't you?"

Karen's eyes went wide before a smirk formed on her face, "Well, they reawakened the heralds of the Three Beasts. I think even if they don't survive we can owe them a posthumous thanks."

Oh, their master was going to be very, very pleased by the events of their missions in Violet City. Even if Karen had failed to retrieve the Master Ball from those kids, her inability to get the job done would be overlooked when he learned that very soon the ancient secrets of Johto would be theirs.

XxX

(With Naruto – Elsewhere in the Ruins of Alph)

"Owwwww…" Janine moaned, holding her back as she sat up and winced, "Is everyone alright?" She asked, watching Naruto and Green begin to get up as well. They had all taken quite the fall. And here she'd been thinking that the ancients built these sorts of temples to last, "The Egg is alright at least," She said, holding on tightly to the incubator with a relived sigh.

"No more ruins," Naruto stated for future emphasis, standing up and readjusting his headband on his head, "I'm never going to another graveyard at night, or weird cultural ruins, or anything like that! Bad stuff always happens whenever we go anywhere like that!"

"It could have been worse really," Janine reasoned, shaking her sore wrists out, smarting from the impact of the fall, "All we did was fall down. It's dark in here though," Fumbling around in the dark, she smiled as she managed to find her flashlight. It hadn't broken, and neither had Naruto's, so that was good.

Apparently, Green was infinitely warier of bird Pokémon than the dark, because she quickly recovered after getting her bearings in the dark corridor. It didn't seem to bother her at all that the only light she had in a creepy underground portion of the Ruins of Alph were two flashlights being held by her friends.

"Oh," The auburn-haired trainer said as she followed the trail of light from the flashlights and saw the strange script carved into the walls, "We're in the main chambers in the base of the valley walls."

"You mean the part that everybody already had access to?" Janine asked, scrunching up her face in confusion. She'd avoided that mundane portion of the ruins because they were the parts that anyone could find and see. There wouldn't be any treasure there, so she'd avoided it, "Well why are the lights all out then? And where is everyone?"

This was the most frequented part of the ruins, and yet it was like a ghost town.

Flicking his flashlight around, a sharp stream of red on the floor caught Naruto's eye. Following the trail that it was weaving along the ground, he eventually turned his light onto the dead bodies of Team Rocket members, two men and a woman. Their Poke Balls clutched in their hands, having never been expanded or thrown.

They had never seen the attack that killed them coming. The grim sight of blood pooling around their bodies caused Naruto to clear his throat. Perhaps this was more serious than just faulty, aged temple construction.

It didn't take too long for his female companions to see the corpses as well and react with varying degrees of surprise on their own. Green had seen some things, but she'd never seen anyone dead before. Janine had seen more than her fair share of it and was able to school her facial reaction, "…We really need to get out of here."

A dark chuckle came from inside of Naruto's mind. Apparently his tenant found something amusing in Janine's dread over the situation, **"I thought she was supposed to be **_**tough**_**. That's what you thought about her all the time during your little camping trip with the toad man. That amongst other things about her,"** Naruto's face went red at the 'subtle' remark, **"…Heh, you're so weak you can't even admit to yourself what you think about her."**

…Maybe if he fell from another serious height, he could get the Kyuubi to shut back up again? It had been talkative at moments ever since some random point during the Safari Zone excursion. It was odd. One day, silence, the next day it started randomly chiming in whenever it felt like it, which was still few and far between, but it happened now and at inopportune moments.

Probably because the biju found these moments interesting.

"**You're going to like this next part."**

Just like that, the hair on the back of Naruto's neck stood up, a harsh grit coming to his teeth as the walls and floors began to vibrate, the noise and feeling intensity increasing every moment as if something were coming closer to them.

Turning in the opposite direction from where he was feeling his growing sense of dread originate from, Naruto grabbed both girls' hands and took off running without saying a word. How could he? He didn't know what was coming their way, but it was guaranteed to leave them in the same condition as the Team Rocket members they'd stumbled across.

Janine had her own share of trouble keeping up, but physically she was in shape, in peak condition for a human on the Pokémon Continent. Green's legs however simply weren't prepared to move as fast as a sprint with her hand in Naruto's grasp would require her to comfortably go.

Therefore, she tripped and fell.

Luckily it was just as they had managed to reach the entrance of the temple, but she wound up unbalancing Janine and Naruto, sending all of them to the ground.

This was a benefit, as hundreds if not thousands of floating creatures, shaped in all sorts of strange characters, flew up into the sky, shooting wild red bursts of energy from their single eyes. They flew up into the sky like bats, like a flock of crows.

Amazement gave way to curiosity, and Naruto had the presence of mind to hurl a single Poke Ball into the air, hitting one of the random Pokémon and trapping it inside of the orb. This could have been taken as an incredibly foolish, as something of this nature could have ended with the odd Pokémon turning their full wrath onto him and his company.

With the panic from being newly awakened and with their purpose needing to be fulfilled, the Unown simply continued flying up into the air and out into the night, momentarily blocking out the view of the moon entirely with their sheer numbers.

And this was coming from a person who had made a thousand clones at one time in the past. To impress Naruto with nothing more than sheer numbers was a feat in of itself.

"What…" Naruto started to say as his gaze drifted back down to the dusty road outside of the temple and the lone Poke Ball that sat on the ground nearby, "…What just happened?"

Licking his suddenly dry lips, Naruto remembered how his instincts went haywire inside of the temple. This wasn't good, whatever _this_ was. And those things were out in the world to do, who knew what. They had already killed dozens inside of the temple, and they traveled in huge swarms.

It wasn't safe. For anyone. And he felt like it was his fault.

Janine pushed herself up and crawled over to the Poke Ball, picking it up and placing it into Naruto's hands, wrapping her hands around his own as she made him hold onto it. She didn't say anything, instead just shaking her head as she continued to hold his hands, both of them resting on their knees in the road.

The sight of her soft gaze in the moonlight attracted Naruto's attention, along with the comforting look on her face. It was as if she were saying, 'We'll figure it out. Don't worry,' and it made his heart jump that she supported him that much. They were each other's extra strength. He couldn't tell exactly when it had happened, but she really had become one of his precious people.

Still, all the positive reinforcement in the world didn't mean much when the fact of the matter was that with everything staring them in the face, none of this added up in the slightest to them.

There had to be someone around smarter than them that could actually piece this together. All of this stumbling through the dark would get them killed… no pun intended.

XxX

(The Next Day – Violet City Pokémon Gym – Rooftop)

Green hadn't even joined Naruto and Janine on the way back to Violet City for the night. She'd been in a complete rush to move along to the next town, and it was odd to see her with that sort of urgency about her. Still, she'd bid them farewell with a saucy grin and requested that they not break open any more of Johto's lost, dangerous secrets if they could help it.

Maybe it was because in the morning they'd be taking themselves to a place noted for nothing but bird Pokémon.

She'd seemed to be past her little silent period and her bird-induced episode though, in much brighter spirits. That counted for a lot, and they were grateful that she'd bounced back so handily.

Either way, it had been good for them to see her again for better or for worse, and Naruto had been looking forward to seeing Red and Blue again if and when he got the chance to.

Which brought them to the following morning. Even with the weirdness at the Ruins of Alph, that had to wait for a roundabout trip, or at least until they'd finished their Egg delivering business at Olivine City.

Even though they'd been assured transport, they didn't think they'd be getting the top-of-the-line, holy shit rides to get there though.

"Oh wow, you're lending us _these_?" Janine asked at the sight of two of Falkner's Pidgeots, "Really, you didn't have to do all of this just to get us to where we need to go."

She wasn't a bird Pokémon expert, but she knew full well that they weren't going to get a faster aerial transport than a Pidgeot. Those weren't the kinds of Pokémon you lent out to someone lightly. It was pretty damned impressive.

Falkner shook his head and held up a hand as if to reason against her, "No, it's not a problem. Consider it an apology for… well, everything. Not just the day before yesterday," He had to avert his eyes away from Janine's face when his words drew a sweet, grateful smile from her, "So ah, don't worry about a thing. These two are some of my absolute fastest. Just hold on tight and they'll get you there."

As Janine went and got acquainted to a degree with the two large, regal-looking birds, rubbing their broadly feathered chests and making nice with them, Naruto grinned at the sight of seeing her so bright and happy, even after the events at the Ruins of Alph. She was usually fun, but it was different to see her outside of her usual element of playful snark and sarcasm.

Not that he hated that about her. He liked the kind of girl she was. It made things interesting. But when she was as she was then, earnestly smiling and enjoying herself, she was pretty. It was nice to see her like that.

A sharp whistle meant to get Naruto's attention came from Falkner, and once Naruto looked over at him the blue-haired Gym Leader jerked his head to the side, indicating that he wanted to speak to Naruto alone for a bit.

Naruto sucked his teeth before silently nodding and heading off to do so.

After walking a short distance away, Falkner set a hand on Naruto's shoulder, much to the latter's confusion. Naruto was still rather cross with Falkner from the way he'd treated Janine the first day they'd come to Violet City, but he'd apologized and she seemed to be fine with him now, so he had no reason to be hostile to him.

Also, he'd kicked the crap out of most of his underlings the day before, so he was able to vent quite a bit on the upstarts that didn't think he was worth much.

"Listen," Falkner began to say, noting that there was a rather intense look in Naruto's eye. Good. He'd have felt bad if the guy he was about to swell up to lacked any sort of spine, "I'm only going to say this once, and then you and I aren't ever going to talk about this again."

Naruto didn't say anything, he simply nodded stiffly once more, tensing and un-tensing his muscles as if preparing for a conflict.

Falkner saw this and let out a sigh before whipping his head to the side to throw his bangs from in front of his eye, "Look, I don't want to fight… yet. You're someone I have to prepare for," He admitted with a smirk, "I just wanted to say, that you'd better enjoy every second that you get with her. Every time she looks at you with those eyes. Every little bit of contact she gives you or lets you give her."

"Huh?" Naruto said, his face slowly turning red, "Oi, don't you… are you… what do you think I'm…?"

Great, he had him all flustered. It was time to go for the kill and make his point.

"You're really lucky you know. I'd give anything to be with her the way you are right now," Falkner said, with a wistful look over the city that he represented and protected, "I'm saying all of this because it's not in my nature to give up without a fight. If you want her - and I mean really want her - you're going to have to put your best foot forward, because I certainly will."

Until one or both of them officially admitted that there was something between them, there was no reason that Falkner couldn't keep trying to win Janine over. The mending of bridges between them was just a start now that he'd gotten over childish displays of reverse-psychological affection and she'd forgiven him.

Suddenly backing away, Falkner moved to the ledge of his Gym roof with his arms extended wide, "Just some friendly advice," He said before making sure Janine was looking at him as he blew her a kiss, "Good luck in Olivine City!"

With that, he dove off and used the built-in glider in his clothes to glide down to a lower lying rooftop safely.

Showoff. Naruto hated it. Not because he was humble and despised people like that. No, it was mostly because he would have had to use about five different tools to do the same thing and land safely the way that Falkner had, and it wouldn't have looked as cool.

Kicking at nonexistent dirt underneath his feet, Naruto ambled back over to Janine and their Pidgeot rides, regarding her closely as he got closer.

'Put my best foot forward? Eh? That guy is nuts,' Naruto thought to himself with a pronounced frown, 'What was he talking about, how she looks at me? She doesn't look at me like anything. Just a friend maybe. She knows-.' He stopped when he actually got close enough to pay attention to the kunoichi Gym Leader's face as she mounted the back of her lent Pidgeot.

There was a gentle tint to her soft eyes, and a content, peaceful acceptance of the person she was looking at as she gazed at Naruto.

Maybe Falkner really did have a point. She definitely didn't look at him like that when they'd first started travelling together. He hadn't even noticed when she'd started looking to him so fondly. It made his heart jump, but a hard gulp kept the harshly beating organ in line.

He did not have feelings for her. He couldn't. It wasn't fair. Not to him or to her. Both of them knew the drill.

Eventually Naruto's time on the Pokémon Continent would come to an end, and he would have to return home; to the Elemental Nations and to Konoha, to fulfil promises made years past and become Hokage.

Janine had her own responsibilities, to carry on the legacy of Pokémon-based ninjutsu and restore the honor to the Fuchsia City Pokémon Gym that had been lost due to the criminal/terrorist actions of her father Koga. She loved her town, and loved her Gym. She wouldn't abandon something that important for a short-term boyfriend. It would have been the same thing in her mind as him abdicating the seat of Hokage for a girl.

They were from places too far apart for any feelings between them to be anything other than a temporary fling. Naruto didn't know anything about _normal_ relationships, let alone ones with distance, but from the way Jiraiya's book themes kept bringing up 'forbidden romance' and from how many of the damn things Naruto had been forced to read back to him, he knew enough to know that this wasn't doable. Not under their circumstances.

It took forever to sail from the Elemental Nations to the Pokémon Continent, and took far too many resources to be a regular journey for even the most hardened sailors to take. He'd seen it firsthand. That open ocean voyage was no joke whatsoever.

"Come on Babyface, let's fly. The sooner we drop this Egg off, the sooner we can keep doing our own thing."

It was just for the best to not think about it. With that in mind, Naruto climbed up onto the docile Pidgeot that he had been meant to ride to Olivine City, "Our thing? You mean fighting with each other and messing up Johto?"

"Aw, it's fun," Janine commented with a smile, reaching out to gently nudge Naruto's cheek with her knuckle, "I wouldn't rather be anywhere else just so you know."

Despite himself and the lurching feeling in his stomach at the thought of keeping his thoughts for her under wraps, Naruto smiled.

Naruto had been given something special, he knew that much. That was what made him fret so much harder over this. It would drive him mad if he dwelled on it past what he knew he couldn't do, but it was something so sweet, that was just out of his reach. Something he figured he _could_ take, but just couldn't… because it was wrong. How was that fair?

The fates, or Kami his/herself had bestowed the kind of potential affection upon him that he'd always wanted in the form of a pretty foreign girl. But the divine conditions were set that neither of them could rightfully act on how they felt. They couldn't touch each other, and they both knew why.

He couldn't hold it. He couldn't touch it. He couldn't touch it once in a while, or take a nibble because he was curious. He couldn't think about touching it. He couldn't write about touching it. He couldn't _write_ about _thinking_ about touching it. He simply couldn't touch it!

…Because sooner rather than later he would have to leave 'it' behind.

* * *

><p><strong>And that's the chapter everybody. I hope you all enjoyed it. There was no heavy combat this time, but you can't always go 'jackhammer'.<strong>

**The Unown are out and about as the first sign of something **_**heavy**_** coming the way of the Johto region. Heavier than Kanto, I can assure you, but you all know how these things work. First they start as relatively small incidents, then they snowball into complete anarchy. **

**Jiraiya has beef with the Elite Four, and Will and Karen have set their sights on working with others to start doing… something involving legendaries that are better off being left alone.**

**Green's looking for Silver to talk him down, as the two share some sort of past that you more than likely know about if you've read the Pokémon Adventures manga that this universe is mostly based off of.**

**Also, feelings! Oooooooooh~! **

**Okay all, last of all, I NEED to give public thanks to two people for doing amazing things for me.**

**First and foremost, Shisora, for being a man of his word and paying up on that nifty PS4 he bet me back at the tail end of August during my week of whirlwind story updates. If it had never shown up, I would have understood because that's a big chunk of change to drop for some guy writing fanfiction stories, but lo and behold he did exactly what he said he would do, and it blew my mind. That was a stand-up move man, and it has been thoroughly enjoyed since I received it on Wednesday. I can almost taste the colors on my TV when I play games. **

**Second, to Gaming Ikari, for sending me Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. I've been reveling in pirate-assassin goodness since Thursday when I haven't been at work or working on this. He did this for nothing. No bet or anything at all. He did it for nothing more than me just writing these stories. I do this for free, but to know that someone's willing to send me a $60 PS4 game because they enjoy what I do that much, it's really humbling. **

**As I've said repeatedly, I'm going to do this and write these stories regardless, but when people show that kind of love, I don't know what to say sometimes. **

**And I don't mean just the people I mentioned because they sent me stuff (although they are the tops). Some people have simply sent me some PMs about how reading these stories have helped them through some tough times that really makes you stop and think to appreciate things. That by itself is enough to make me keep trying to put my best foot forward, keep getting better, and keep on writing.**

**And when I finally complete my full-length original novel, it will become a best-seller, and I'll be rich as hell.**

**This AN is dragging so I'll just end it here.**

**Shisora, Gaming Ikari, you both rule. Kenchi out.**


	23. The Face of the Enemy

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. No one owns Pokémon. Pokémon owns _you_.

Or at least it owns your childhood.

**Chapter 23: The Face of the Enemy**

* * *

><p>To say that Silver had been rubbed the wrong way by the Team Rocket goon that had tried to sell him a Slowpoke Tail was an understatement. His raw mood that had been caused by his defeat at Naruto's hands went right along with his original dislike of Team Rocket to begin with, and had only been enhanced at the slight at his training prowess that he ever needed an illegal boost to improve the training he put his Pokémon through, unintentional as said slight happened to be.<p>

Either way, there was only one place in Johto where someone could go to run a black market operation such as selling the tails of the Pokémon Slowpoke.

Azalea Town, and the Slowpoke Well that it played host to.

Despite being called a well, the only thing that was wellish about it was that it had a large amount of stored water sitting within. After you took the ladder down the opening, it was more like a massive cavern. True to its name, Slowpoke was the breed of Pokémon that could be found swimming in the water or sitting around with a dopey expression on its face on the rocks and stone paths that filled the place.

The guard up top was completely out of his league when he tried to throw his weight around and stop Silver from entering. A single Zubat and a Koffing wouldn't have been enough to beat even a single one of his Pokémon on their worst day.

Once inside, he knew for certain that he'd chosen the right place. All sorts of Slowpokes were missing their tails all around.

It would have justified the asskicking he gave to the Team Rocket grunts stationed there to harvest tails, but Silver felt that he didn't need any justification to crack their skulls. Just the fact that they were Team Rocket was enough for him.

"Slash." Silver ordered, watching his Sneasel cut down the Team Rocket member that had thought it a good idea to take him on alone after watching all of his friends fall. His Pokémon had already been defeated, but that by itself wasn't enough for him, "…I can't believe my dad chose you weaklings over…"

No, there wasn't any need to think about that. Giovanni had still been his father, even if he'd never searched for him after he'd been spirited away. Team Rocket distracted him from finding him. That didn't mean his father hadn't missed him, it meant that he'd assumed the worst as to his son's fate.

Either way, it didn't matter. His father was dead, he knew who killed him, and he needed to prepare for just what it would take to end that person's life.

To that end, he was going to clean that well out. Other than serving the purpose of practical training, it was damn cathartic.

Watching the blood of the downed Team Rocket member stream toward the water, Silver did nothing but sneer and turn his nose. He needed more of a challenge. Sure, his Pokémon were gaining experience and strength (his Totodile in particular had come a long, long way), but Uzumaki Naruto wasn't sitting around waiting on him.

He knew that anything he'd learned of the young man was over nine months out of date. Their meeting in Cherrygrove City proved just how handily Uzumaki could dispatch him at that point in time.

'This is going way too slowly," Silver thought to himself as he returned his Sneasel to its ball, 'I need stronger Pokémon.'

"I finally found you!"

Stopping before he went to stand on the back of his Totodile to cross the water within the deep, vast well, Silver turned around to see an old friend standing, apparently having tracked him down, "Green. What in the hell are you doing here? How did you even find me?"

"Oh you know you can't outrun me," Green replied with a saucy wink before her smile turned rather strained, "Anyway… I came to ask you for a favor."

"If you want to trade back for your Snubbull that's fine," Silver told her, trying to guess what she wanted before she could say it. He had no idea why she'd seem so reluctant to ask him for something. They grew up together for goodness sake. They were like family almost. They escaped their hell of a childhood together, "I didn't evolve it while I had it. I know how you hate that."

"No, not that," Green said in a demure voice as she accepted the Poke Ball containing the aforementioned Pokémon back. It was a stark contrast from how he'd usually come to perceive her personality, "…I want you to stop going after Naruto."

Silver's face changed from one of surprise to a cold, hardened expression, "How do you even know I'm concerned about that idiot?"

Because he called him an idiot for one. That had to have meant that he knew _something_ about Naruto. That wasn't what she said however, "Because I know that Naruto was the one that defeated Giovanni!" Very few people did know that for certain as a matter of fact.

"Defeated him? He killed him," Silver said with a dangerous tint to his voice, "He killed my father Green. Am I supposed to just let it go?"

"He was the leader of Team Rocket! He was going to take over Kanto."

Silver knew she was right, and that was what made him hesitate, but then he realized that it didn't matter, "…I don't care about that."

Why? Because as awful a human being as he was, Giovanni had still been his dad.

He didn't care that his father had been the head of an organization that had come just short of bringing an entire region to its knees? Naruto had done the right thing in that battle! It wasn't the easiest thing to think about sure, but he'd stopped Team Rocket from splitting Kanto via a weakness in the regional Gym Leader system and conquering it.

Silver never even really got to know his father, and that was part of the reason that he was so angry.

"Is it really that important to try and kill Naruto over this?" Green pleaded with her oldest friend, "Your father did bad things. Awful things. He killed lots of people and Pokémon and ruined lives. That doesn't make it right, but it doesn't make _you_ right for trying to kill him either!"

She wished she'd never told him that she knew Naruto. Back during Naruto's time in the Safari Zone, back when she'd last met up with Silver she'd been all too eager to tell him about the adventures she'd had, the people she'd met, the things they'd accomplished.

Naruto's name came up when it had been talked about that Team Rocket had been defeated in Kanto. He was the last person seen going into Viridian City Pokémon Gym before it wound up being destroyed. If you were one of the few people who'd known that Viridian City's Gym Leader and the head of Team Rocket were one in the same, it didn't take much to put two and two together.

"I didn't say what I was doing was right. That's still not going to stop me from trying to do it," Silver said as he stepped onto the back of his Totodile and floated deeper within, "Don't follow me Green. You're not going to like what you see of me if you do. You know how _he_ taught us to be."

Hearing _him_ brought up gave Green instant pause. She did remember the sort of person that _he_ wanted all of his 'children' to become. With that being the case, she and others were lucky that she only wound up being a swindler. She could have been something far worse.

And looking at the dead body floating in the red-stained water that she'd just noticed, she hoped that Silver hadn't wound up becoming that something worse.

XxX

(With Naruto – Elsewhere in Johto – Olivine City)

"We really have to thank Falkner when we see him again for letting us borrow these rides!" Janine shouted over the wind as she and Naruto rode side-by-side en route to their destination by the coast, the Pokémon Egg safely secured to her as they flew, "It would have taken us forever to get here on foot!"

"Yeah, I guess…" Naruto replied reluctantly. After what Falkner had told him before they'd left he didn't really want to thank the guy for anything, but the rides were much appreciated.

Looking over at Janine's face as she tucked some of her face into the plumage of her Pidgeot to protect her eyes from the sheer wind he could still see the beautiful, gleeful smile on her face. She was having the time of her life out there, traveling, doing things like this. He couldn't imagine how much of a chore she saw tending to the Gym as, even though she loved it more than anything else in her world.

The girl seemed to glow when she was out and enjoying herself with nothing more than life on the road. She had a touch of the wanderlust, and the mischievous spirit of a traveler. This was when she was truly in her element, Naruto had decided. Nothing else would do her justice.

Lazing about outside, napping in the shade of a leafy tree after a morning of training. Sitting by a stream or river, a Super Rod in her hands and her feet in the water, relaxing as she fished. Traipsing about searching for valuables to sell at market in dark Zubat-infested caves. These were the things Naruto thought about when he thought of her, because he'd seen her do them all with the same happiness that she took to the skies with. She wouldn't be shaking this side of herself anytime soon and he wouldn't have had her any other way whatsoever.

A grin on his face at the sight of her joy and a view of a prominent landmark on the horizon, Naruto decided to touch on another thing he knew that she loved; competition.

"Race ya to that lighthouse!" Naruto shouted at her as he directed his Pidgeot to speed up for the target goal.

Janine was quick to react and send her own Pidgeot right after him, "Oh Babyface, you cheating S.O.B.!" She laughed as she played catch-up, "Get back here!"

Naruto could stick to his Pidgeot with chakra, thus he was able to try barrel rolls and all sorts of acrobatics to keep Janine from flying in his slipstream to catchup. Still, she was daring enough to match his moves in order to stay where she needed to be to close the distance.

Pidgeot was a much smoother ride than Naruto's Aerodactyl was, sacrificing absolutely no dexterity for the speed of its flying. Naruto knew what he was doing when flying on an athletic Pokémon. Janine did not. She was simply nuts and completely willing to do what he did because she'd seen him attempt it first.

"Hey Babyface!" Janine called out over the wind.

"What?"

"It's a good thing you like looking at my butt so much, because you're gonna get a really good view now!" Janine finished. Taking advantage of the shocked blush on his face, she swept underneath Naruto's Pidgeot and took the lead. Only her victorious laugh snapped him out of his shock with a growl.

There wasn't any actual annoyance or anger behind it though. He was feeling pretty playful in his own right, and if he hadn't been used to how she was by then he would have needed to have his head examined.

He managed to keep it close after losing the number one spot, but in the end, Janine's Pidgeot was the first one to reach the lighthouse and circle it, making it her victory as she landed right on the open area by Olivine City's port. Her Pidgeot had a very pleased look on its face as she jumped off of it, apparently fully aware that it had been on the better end of a race.

"Hm, we should've totally made a wager on that one eh?" Janine crowed victoriously, a thin, wry smile on lips as she watched Naruto hover just above her, "I might've been able to get you to buy me dinner or take me on another vacation."

"I totally let you pass me," Naruto drawled, landing and climbing off of his borrowed flying Pokémon, "If I beat you at everything you'd just get all huffy and stop talking to me until you got one-up on me again."

"Excuse me," Janine said with something of a snort, taking the Egg incubator out of its safety harness and back into her arms, "When do I ever get huffy?" She saw Naruto begin to silently add up separate occasions on all of the fingers on both hands before wiggling his toes as he started to count with them as well. Just fingers weren't enough, "…Nevermind."

With their jobs done and their passengers delivered, Falkner's Pidgeot pair took off once more and started on their way back to Violet City. Quite a lot of stamina those birds had. It was rather impressive.

And since Falkner's Pokemon had done their jobs in getting the ninja/kunoichi pair to Olivine City in short order, it was up to them to do their jobs in returning the Pokémon Egg to the city's Gym Leader.

"This hasn't been so bad for a job we're basically working for free,"

"It's not for free. Professor Elm gave me Chienha."

"Right. Gave _you_ Chienha. _You_. I'm basically doing this for free," Janine pointed out with a wither-less glare, "If I hadn't said anything you would have made sure that we _would_ be doing this for free."

Naruto would have cracked back with, 'Why don't you take her then?' but quickly thought better of it. He loved having that little Chikorita, as loathe to do anything active as she was, and wouldn't have wanted to plant any sort of seed anywhere that he didn't want her, even acerbically in order to win a petty argument, "Fine. I'll pay you back."

"With what?"

Good question. Naruto really hadn't done anything to gain money in a while. Jiraiya had swiped most of his Moon Stone money because he was an ass. Every time Naruto challenged him straight up for the right to leave the Safari Zone early, Jiraiya would beat him down and take his money as payment for the indiscretion. He was also fairly certain that this money was what Jiraiya had used to 'treat him' in buying him his new outfits and the Poké Gear.

Aside from that, the money that Naruto had made beforehand on the road battling with other trainers had been used to keep him and his Pokémon fed during that entire trip.

He had more than enough money to keep himself going until he found his next way to make more, but if he deviated from his budget and decided to splurge on something such as more Poke Balls than he rightfully needed to keep on his person, he'd be as broke as a joke.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders in response to Janine's query on his existing funds and rested his hands behind his neck as they walked through the bright, clean port city, "I dunno. I'll give you whatever you want. Think about it and get back to me later. You're good at making me miserable, you should be able to come up with something that'll piss me off."

Janine just stared at Naruto, the only thing keeping her mouth from hanging open being her own self-awareness at her surprise.

Naruto had basically given her a blank ticket to ask him for anything she wanted. It didn't have to be anything monetary. It didn't even have to be a possession at all. And he would remember and do his damndest to do right by his offer.

She did a little dance in her head at more or less owning Naruto on command for the foreseeable future. She would pick her spot wisely and enjoy the benefits of that particular advantage.

"So?" Naruto said expectantly, breaking Janine from her victorious reverie.

"'So' what?" She asked him in return, a bit put off at how expectant he'd sounded. Yes, they would butt heads over the smallest of things, mostly because it was fun, "Words are needed to form questions Babyface."

It was so easy to get under Naruto's skin, it was like a reflex to do by that point, "Grr, we're going to see Olivine's Gym Leader. So come on, make with the background stuff already. Who is it?"

"I don't know," Janine admitted, letting the air out of Naruto's reasoning unintentionally, "I knew Falkner. I didn't know any of the other Gym Leaders in this region before all of the bad stuff happened and I wound up becoming one in Kanto," There was a network, sure, but that network became strained when things crossed regional lines, "Your guess is as good as mine really."

Well that was no good.

Erika expressly told Naruto not to get into fights with the Gym Leaders, but what if Olivine City's Gym Leader was a jerk, or a maniac with some kind of evil plot like half of Kanto's Gym Leaders had been? Or worse, someone who was just so easy to want to put the boots to… kind of like how Falkner was. Naruto didn't think his self-control could handle running into two of those types back-to-back without slugging one of them.

It wasn't hard to locate the Gym, as they were usually the most prominent building in any town or city that had them. It was the same for Olivine, with the exception of the lighthouse. Thus, their destination was clear.

XxX

Whatever Naruto had been expecting Gym Leader-wise, what he got hadn't been it.

Olivine's Gym Leader was a very pretty young girl around his age with long light brown hair, two tufts of which were held up with a pair of rust-colored beads, and light brown eyes. She wore a light blue dress with white fringe and long white sleeves, a large rust-colored bow situated across her chest, as well as sandals with a seashell-pattered white strap across her feet.

Above all else, she _did not_ look like one of the strongest trainers in all of Johto. Not because she was a girl, and not because she looked delicate. Her overall demeanor even at first glance was of someone too gentle to fight on that sort of level.

Upon finding her, she'd been sitting on a ledge by the ocean, staring out at the water past the lighthouse on another bluff maybe half a mile away. Resting its head on her lap was a large yellow, white-bellied Pokémon with two legs, two stubby, flipper-like arms, black stripes on its long neck, ears, and tail. On the end of its tail and on its forehead was a red bulb that seemed to flash with a dull glow that mirrored the content look on its face.

Curious, Naruto pulled out his Pokédex and looked what he could up on it.

"_Ampharos, the Light Pokémon._ _Ampharos gives off so much light that it can be seen even from space. People in the old days used the light of this Pokémon to send signals back and forth with others far away."_

It was an electric type. So did that mean that this girl trained electric Pokémon, the way Lt. Surge did. That was fine. If push came to shove, Naruto had already dealt with enough electric types willing to shock him to death. He could do it again. She didn't seem to be the type though, and neither did her Ampharos.

"Careful. If you stare at her any harder she'll melt," Janine said, arms crossed over her chest, startling the girl and waking up the Ampharos. She'd never heard them coming, and it had shown clearly when both she and the formerly slumbering Pokémon visibly jumped.

"I wasn't staring," Naruto muttered under his breath.

"Baybface, if you came with a heads-up display you would have been locked right onto her."

Okay, he was staring at her. But he had a good reason, "I was just sizing her up!"

"I'll bet you were."

"Shut up would you?"

Embarassed at being caught off-guard as a powerful Gym Leader, the girl straightened out her dress over her thighs and stood up to face her visitors, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear either of you coming. It was rude of me to not greet you."

"Don't worry about it," Naruto said, waving off her apology, "You not knowing we were here until we were right behind you just means we're that awesome, so it's a compliment."

The girl didn't know what Naruto was talking about, but he said it with good humor and a genteel smile, so she smiled right back at him, "Right. Well please allow me to introduce myself. I'm Jasmine, the Olivine City Gym Leader. It's nice to meet you both."

"Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage, at your service!" Naruto replied, sticking his hand out for Jasmine to shake. She didn't know what a 'Hokage' was, but the boy was nice enough, and she was kind enough by nature to gently accept his gesture of greeting.

Janine noticed the smile and the downright pleasant atmosphere between Naruto and Jasmine and frowned. Something about this was off. Something bit at the back of her mind. That something being that Naruto was _never_ this pleasant when he first met girls. Ever. Even girls who he happened to be friends with now, such as herself, or Erika.

"You weren't that nice when you met Misty, Erika, Sabrina, or me," Janine said, blinking in surprise at the stray amount of jealously(?) she found in her own tone.

Naruto paused in shaking Jasmine's hand and turned back to his kunoichi friend with a dry look on his face, "You were screwing up my guard job when we first met, I had to fight Misty right after I met her, Erika rubbed me the wrong way when we first met, and do I really have to explain why I wasn't nice to Sabrina?" That wasn't even hard to argue down, "Come on, you're smarter than that."

Point taken. Janine blushed at being verbally outsparred by Naruto of all people, "Well when you put it that way…" Extenuating circumstances did color his original reception of all of them, even if things got better over time with most of them.

Her attention now drawn to her Gym Leader contemporary, Jasmine gasped at the sight of the egg incubator in the young woman's arms, "You're the ones Professor Elm called and told me about last week. The ones bringing back the Egg my Pokémon made."

"Oh," Janine said before handing the incubator over, "We took good care of it, I promise."

"I wouldn't ever consider that you wouldn't have," Jasmine said with a bright smile, "The two of you seem like wonderful people."

Naruto rolled his eyes and snorted, "Sure, Janine is nice if you have all of your expensive stuff locked up and out of sight."

"Babyface is nice, but just don't use words with more than three syllables around him or his brain might short out."

"Hey, I'm not dumb!"

"And I don't steal random stuff anymore! I'm a Gym Leader now!"

Jasmine sighed in relief and happiness, ignoring her two arguing guests going forehead-to-forehead, "I'm so glad. My two Pokémon made this Egg in the Day Care Center I left them at, and I let the owner send it to Professor Elm to study for a short while. He said he found it wiggling around sometimes. I wanted it back in time for it to hatch you see," It was good timing too, because Jasmine could see the Egg shake every now and again inside of the incubator.

Just like that, Janine cut away from her argument with Naruto. She moved away at the thought of seeing a Pokémon hatch, inadvertently letting Naruto fall to the ground, "Aww, a baby Pokémon!" She gushed, "That's so cute! Can we stay and see it hatch?"

"Uh…" Naruto slowly picked himself up off of the ground and shook the dust off of himself, "Yeah. Why not?" Where else did they have to go? "The tournament's not for a while so it's not like we're in some rush to get to Indigo Plateau."

At the comment of a tournament at Indigo Plateau, Jasmine's ears started burning so to speak, "You two know about the tournament? But that information hasn't been released to the general public yet, either in Johto or Kanto."

-Because of course tickets were going to be sold, so it stood to reason that there were people excited about it. Travelers, other trainers, etc. It seemed too early for any of those types to be making plans as the announcement for the Gym Leader Tournament was still three and a half months away.

Both Naruto and Janine looked at each other in confusion before realization dawned on the latter, "Oh! About that, I'm Fuchsia City's Gym Leader in Kanto, and Babyface here is standing in for the vacant Vermillion City spot to round our side of things."

"Yo," Naruto said in acknowledgment of his introduction, "Lookin' forward to the tournament."

Jasmine stared at them both, processing all of this as her Ampharos wondered why she'd frozen. So she was possibly going to have to fight one of these two in a matter of months? They were amongst the best Kanto had

She had one verbalization for making new friends with the regional rivals, "…Oh my."

XxX

(With Jiraiya – Mt. Silver)

Naruto was going to be pissed. This was what Jiraiya figured as he sat with his Pokémon and Naruto's Aerodactyl by a healing spring that he'd managed to locate amid the harsh wilderness, "…Should've brought the brat here to train," He said to himself, "This place is no joke."

And he'd even managed to catch something to add to his team of helpers. A strange blue Pokémon with toad eyes and a hypnotic swirl for a belly.

…He couldn't help it. For some reason it called to his very nature, and he had to take it.

So now he had a Jynx, a Lapras, Naruto's Aerodactyl, and the toad thing that he didn't know what to call. Poli-something. Whatever. It was badass was what it was, and that was all that mattered.

With a sigh, Jiraiya dug underneath the water and picked a piece of rubble from his backside, "Fuck," Those were the breaks when someone brought down an entire cave on top of your head.

That Lance. Jiraiya was going to break his foot off in that guy's ass if he ever saw him again. And with his luck he more than likely would. People that tried to kill him once usually had a tendency to come back around to finish the job.

With that in mind, he regarded his present company with a mindful eye, "I didn't know you all could get that strong," Whatever Lance had done with whatever Pokémon he'd used, it turned the Tohjo Falls into a demolition zone after one blast, "…You guys are like carry-along summons."

Eyeing Naruto's snoozing Aerodactyl, he wondered if the brat knew just how powerful these damn things could get, even if they weren't as automatically powerful as the Zapdos, Articuno, or Moltres they'd dealt with in the past had been.

Come to think of it, it wouldn't be surprising if Pokémon came to be more powerful than that. After all, he himself was chasing something that had the power to block the Summoning Jutsu from working on that continent. The kind of power that would take obviously wasn't anything to turn one's nose up at.

Jiraiya wondered what Naruto was doing at the moment. He was surprised that the kid didn't throw more of a bitch fit when Jiraiya let on that he was borrowing his aerial ride. Whenever the big guy was up for flying he had to keep looking around for clues on the legendary that Oak told him was in Johto. The one with more power than the supposed Mew that he never saw

"Hah..." Jiraiya sighed in relief of the soothing spring, "Whenever you're up for it we've got to move big guy. I'm going to try and get a good jump on finding that Pokémon before Naruto really gets around to missing you."

Kamisori let out a quiet screech noise and rested his head back down in his wing-arms.

That was a good idea. Relaxing time was now. Getting down to business could wait until later, once they were all rested up. Another sigh from Jiraiya this time caused him to breathe out cold smoke. What the hell?

Since when was it cold on that mountain? It had been warm for the last few days and summer was nowhere near over.

XxX

A woman with red hair in a ponytail and a body-hugging black and lavender dress walked through the tundra that she and her Pokémon had turned the Mt. Silver wilderness into. It was all simply to prepare the battlefield to do battle with the only human that had ventured Mt. Silver way in quite some time.

To think, this person had managed to survive a shot from Lance's Dragonite's Hyper Beam.

Lance was busy with Bruno in Ecruteak City though, getting things in order to locate their target Pokémon that would help them with their goal. Agatha was elsewhere doing her own thing, the old woman was a mystery, and not one that others were eager to solve either.

So that left the ice master of the Elite Four to do the job for their leader while he did more important things. If Lance found this Jiraiya person dangerous enough to approach in order to kill, and he managed to survive the attack and the trap, it was more than likely for the best that he meet his end as soon as possible.

This was the worst kind of person to be allowed to roam while they did their work.

"I can't take this man lightly," The woman said to herself, seemingly unaffected by the below freezing temperatures she walked through, "It should be fun though. Fighting someone that could stand up to Lance seems interesting."

XxX

(With Naruto – Ecruteak City)

Naruto hadn't expected to see so much of Johto's countryside so quickly. First he got most of view of it from the sky on Falkner's Pidgeot, and now he was getting a good view of it from the back of Ranbouen. He was definitely traveling a lot more and at a faster pace than he had been in Kanto.

Then again, he was good with that. It was all still a lot of fun, and his company was fine. The usual suspect of Janine, along with a temporary tagalong, at least for a day or so.

"An Egg will hatch faster with more active things happening around it," Jasmine explained as she, Janine, and Naruto rode on the back of Naruto's Arcanine, "With how close it is to hatching, I think a day trip like this is just perfect for it!"

Yes, the company was aesthetically fine.

Not knowing exactly where the city was without using the map in his Poké Gear, Naruto and Janine had to rely on Jasmine's directions as she was the only local they knew that could tell them where to go. She was more than happy to show them the way firsthand.

"There it is. Do you see it?" Jasmine asked, pointing straight down the path to the city they'd been coming up on, "We head through this town to go to Goldenrod City. That's where the Egg's parents are."

For some reason, Janine's hold around Naruto's torso grew tighter, making him actually wince at how hard she was holding onto him. She'd been sort of silent and sullen since they'd left Olivine City. He didn't get why. Jasmine was a nice girl.

It hadn't been necessary, but Janine had outright asserted her place as the first to get on Ranbouen behind Naruto, pressing herself to him tighter than she'd ever done so before. Really, it had been hard to keep himself thinking somewhat cleanly when every curve on the girl's body was close enough to feel her heart hammer in her chest.

If it was any 'fraternizing with the enemy' crap, and if she brought it up later she was going to be getting a good talking to. Johto Gym Leader or not, Jasmine was a good person.

"So why are we going to this Goldenrod place?" Naruto eventually asked, speaking up loud enough for his voice to be heard over the air rushing past his head. Damn, Ranbouen was fast. It did Naruto's heart good to know that he wasn't the only one who'd gotten stronger in the Safari Zone. Ranbouen was probably the fastest land Pokémon there was.

…In Naruto's honest, humble opinion of course.

"Well that's where I left the two Pokémon who made the Egg you see," Jasmine said with a smile, "I think it's nice to send some of my Pokémon on a little vacation every once in a while for all of their hard work, and the Day Care Center is like a spa for Pokémon."

_Such_ a sweetheart.

Naruto turned over his shoulder to look at Janine dryly, "Why can't you ever be nice like that?"

Janine's mouth hung open in an affronted manner, "I'm nice! I'm the reason you have Kamisori! The Old Amber I gave you came from me when I tried to rob Pewter City Museum!"

"Aside from the fact that you were using me as a mule so you could sell it later-," Naruto hadn't even known what he had on him until Blaine told him brought the prehistoric Pokémon to life, "-You haven't been really friendly today, and we totally met someone new!"

Jasmine was great! By now he'd have expected her and Janine to have hit it off, especially with how polite and friendly the Olivine City Gym Leader was.

Janine just averted her eyes away, allowing Naruto to focus back on the road ahead of them. She'd never seen Naruto so easily taken with anyone before. His first meetings with people were always prickly. It didn't matter who it was with or under what circumstances he met them. He never just hit it off with anyone.

Why did the first time that things went smoothly have to be with a girl as pretty as Jasmine?

Sure, Janine couldn't bring herself to try and get with Naruto, but that didn't mean she was happy with the idea of someone else having an easier time of accepting the come-and-go situation that a relationship with him would entail.

Call it jealousy, because she wasn't willing to admit to herself that it was anything else. And that was silly, being jealous of someone that she'd only met a few hours ago.

With a smile, Jasmine looked around at the classical, old-fashioned style of the road and buildings and knew they were in the middle of Ecruteak, "We can stop here for a short while if you two would like. There's no need to be in such a rush. I just want my Pokémon to see their new baby. We can take our time."

Naruto drew Ranbouen to a stop and allowed the girls to climb off of the massive beast before Naruto grinned and hugged him around the back of the neck, "We really appreciate it buddy. Rest your legs 'cuz we might need you to take us the rest of the way down to Goldenrod City," Ranbouen let out a loud series of barks and shot a jet of fire high into the air in acceptance of Naruto's gratitude.

Chuckling at his exuberant Pokémon, Naruto couldn't help but still see Ranbouen the way that he did when he was a Growlithe.

As he returned his first capture to his Poké Ball, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to face Jasmine, "You really seem to care about your Pokémon. There are a lot of people out there that see them as pets, or soldiers, or tools."

Naruto shook his head, still grinning, "I could never see any of 'em like that. They trained right next to me for months," In that hell that Jiraiya put him through they made sure he knew he wasn't in it alone, "They saved my life and I saved theirs. They're my comrades."

"Comrades," Jasmine said, as if testing the idea of the word instead of friends, "…I like that. Maybe there's a chance that I could be a comrade one day too?"

"Well she is," Naruto said, indicating Janine who'd been making strangling motions in Jasmine's direction until right when they'd turned to her. At that point she put her hands behind her back and smiled brightly, the other two none the wiser, "And we used to fight all of the time at first."

"Oh, well that sounds difficult actually," Jasmine said, frowning at the thought of friends fighting. They seemed so close too.

"Nah," Naruto grabbed Janine in a shoulder hug that surprised the girl. Instead of the act to be happy that she'd been putting on, she actually did blush at the gesture, "I don't think trying to get along with anyone else would have been half as much fun," His face lit up slightly as well, but he was better able to hide it behind a big grin.

It helped that the two had been doing everything they could to avoid making eye contact with each other.

…So sightseeing?

XxX

(Azalea Town)

Silver was exhausted.

His feet couldn't carry him to a Pokémon Center fast enough for his tastes, and the way his steps slogged down the road, in reality his speed hadn't actually been that fast at all.

He'd destroyed every member of Team Rocket he could find inside of that base. It was pathetic. In the end, when they realized that their numbers failed, they begged off, saying that he would be an incredible member of Team Rocket, guaranteeing him high status, and that the executives would be impressed and move him into their ranks quickly.

When he cut down those types, it gave him the most satisfaction. Being a weakling was one thing, but acting strong and then falling apart in such a manner when everything failed you? There wasn't anything forgivable about that.

He cared nothing about how quaint and quiet the town was, the heavily forested settlement connecting directly into the vast nearby Ilex Forest. He ignored the sounds of the village citizens realizing slowly all over that their beloved Slowpokes were returning from the well that they'd been captured and taken to. He couldn't have cared less about that either.

He and his Pokémon were making strides. It was an exhausting effort sweeping the place of enemies however, and he needed rest. Even a taskmaster like him would acknowledge that his Pokémon did as well.

Emerging from the trees that flanked the lone road he walked down on both sides, three dark colored dogs with orange muzzles and bellies surrounded him on three sides. With spade-tipped tails and curved grey horns on their heads they resembled hellhounds more than Pokémon. Silver knew what they were however.

"Houndoom," He spat, knowing that these were more than likely Team Rocket Pokémon. He'd dealt with enough of the pre-evolved forms of this creature to make that educated a guess.

"Not bad."

The only way that hadn't been covered by a Houndoom was behind Silver, and that place had been filled by a man with short, slick black hair wearing a suave magenta suit. Yes, this was definitely Team Rocket.

"So I'm guessing that you're the guy who was in charge of this operation," Silver said, smirking in a smug manner despite his circumstances, "Sorry about tearing the whole thing down. But you see… I just saw that guy standing like a guard dog out front, and when I saw that 'R' on his clothes, well you know what they say about a Tauros and the color red? The same thing applies here."

The man just laughed, running his hand through his hair. Silver looked down at his own hands for a split-second. He was unprotected. He could call out his Pokémon to deal with the Houndoom around him while he attacked this person directly himself. At the very least he could get as close as possible before calling out Sneasel who would definitely be fast enough to kill him in one strike.

"I don't care what you do to those grunts," The man said, calming down from his laughs, just as Silver made his move. Unfortunately, he hadn't anticipated a member of Team Rocket that had been physically capable enough to rely on their own strength instead of just their Pokémon's.

When Silver moved forward to make his move, hands reaching for his Poké Balls, the man was already in his face. Silver's fingertips brushed the Poké Balls before he found himself knocked to the ground, staring down the fiery maw of a Houndoom with the man's foot planted on his chest.

"You're saying that you don't remember me Silver?" The man said, "You don't remember your old senior Carl? I know it's been six years since I finished training and began work for the master, but hearing that you forgot me makes me sad."

Silver shook, remembering his awful childhood with that horrible person in the mask, the person who originally took him from his deceased father before everything fell apart, "What do you want?"

"For you to inherit what's yours. Your father used to lead Team Rocket, didn't he?" Carl's smile only grew as he saw several mounting shifts of shock on Silver's face, "Mask of Ice always knew what became of your father after he took you. It's a shame Giovanni lost his aim to find you and focused on taking over Kanto. If he hadn't run into that kid, he might have actually lasted long enough to screw with master's plans. So why not use the resources that your father built up in this country, get as strong as you can, and destroy Uzumaki?"

"And what's to stop me from trying to kill you if you let me up?" Silver asked rhetorically.

"Well aside from me not letting you up to begin with-," Carl said, a burst of fire coming from one of his Houndoom as a visual threat, "-You've got to prioritize here. Who do you want to kill more, me or Uzumaki?"

That was what truly gave Silver pause. Even if he hadn't heard it in passing from Green when she'd been going on happily months ago about the people she'd met and the things she'd done, he would have been able to pick up on it from anyone who knew of Naruto. He wasn't around for the long term. He would be leaving. Whether he'd be leaving in three days, three months, or three years, no one really knew.

All he knew was that one day Naruto would be gone. He'd have come, seen, killed, and gotten away scot-free. Most people would never know that he'd done anything because of the nature of the Viridian Gym battle, and of the few who did most would see him as a hero for killing Giovanni and stopping Team Rocket.

Silver would miss his chance for some closure, and he would not get another one. There would be an entire vast ocean between Naruto's continent and his.

His window was small, and it could close at any time. The more resources he had to get the job done, the sooner he could get stronger.

"…Fine. Have it your way," Silver eventually said, accepting the 'offer', "But if you think for a second that this means you can turn your back on me, that I won't kill you just for being associated with that masked bastard for as long as you were, I guess you'd deserve to die."

Carl backed away, allowing Silver up, his confidence never waning despite the redhead's threat, "You're going to do just fine."

XxX

(With Naruto – Ecruteak City – Burned Tower)

Standing in the middle of a depleted wreck of what used to be a tall, proud tower, Naruto could only wonder how in the hell he'd consented to going to a place that was called 'Burned Tower', 'Ugh… what was I thinking? This is so boring!' "Uuuuuuugggh!"

Naruto's loud groan, intentionally done to garner the attention of one or both of his companions, did actually receive attention from both Jasmine and Janine, the latter of whom had been gleefully searching what was left of the grounds, her Golbat helping her reach the higher rafters of the single story tower that were too dangerous to try and stand on, "What's eating you Babyface?"

"Why did we come here?" Naruto asked before turning his attention to Jasmine, who'd remained on the ground, "We were going to Goldenrod City right? Isn't that place supposed to be huge?"

Jasmine frowned before explaining the reasoning that led Janine to accepting a trip there, "Naruto, this is a cultural landmark. A piece of Johto history. 150 years ago, this was called the Brass Tower, and along with the Tin Tower that's also in this town, two great and legendary Pokémon that the towers were built by humans to praise lived inside of them. But the Brass Tower burned down in a horrible fire, and this is all that's left now."

Naruto had seen the Tin Tower. Even without getting anywhere near it, it was so tall that he could see it from the opposite end of the town, "So why didn't we go to the tower that's still standing? There's a chance we could run into that Pokémon, right?"

Wishful thinking? Yes, but at least that underlying thought would have made attending that damned tower more fun than hanging out in a roofless, destroyed building. There was no way that dwelling in the Burned Tower was safe. Not that he really cared about that sort of thing.

So yeah, cultural landmark, blah-blah-blah. Piece of history, blah-blah-blah. Ecruteak City, hamlet of Johto's oldest preserved traditions and cultures, blah!

Sometimes Naruto barely respected his own culture. The chief reason he was respecting theirs as much as he was doing at the moment despite being bored out of his mind was precisely because it wasn't his. It seemed to be important to the people of Johto, these stories and legends, at least if what he'd seen in the classical town of Ecruteak and Jasmine's reverence for them despite not living there was anything to go off of.

Of course, Janine was just there to treasure hunt. She had her Itemfinder out the second they'd walked inside. So her motivation for going was obvious. Jasmine apparently just wanted to teach him some things after hearing that he wasn't just not from Johto, he wasn't from their continent at all.

Jasmine just wanted Naruto to learn something about her region while they were in Ecruteak City. That was sweet of her. Misplaced perhaps, but she hadn't yet found out that he had the attention span of a rabid mongoose, so it was with the best of intentions that she wanted to do this, figuring that he'd find it fun or interesting.

Honestly, he'd mostly checked out of the story as it was originally explained after the legendary Pokémon part.

…Don't you judge him.

Resigning himself to the grand Johto tour, Naruto plopped down forcefully on the wood floor, hearing the old planks creak in distress under the sudden pressure. Not his wisest move, as they quickly gave out and dropped him down below, "Craaaap!"

A quick fall coupled with a sudden stop. As far as falls went those were Naruto's favorite, because anything other than that had the propensity to end in either catastrophic injury or death. As far as this fall went it just hurt like hell and rattled his brain.

"Babyface/Naruto are you alright!?"

Prompted by Janine and Jasmine's questioning of his well-being, Naruto shifted around on the dirt ground and stared up at the light coming through the hole that his body had created in the clearly rotten wood floor, "Yeah. I'm just… ugh. Is there a way back up that you guys can see? There's no wall around me."

"I can't see one. Can you move around? I'll just have Ariados drop you a line."

"Uh-huh. Alright," Naruto said, sitting up and dusting himself off. Something felt odd though. Reaching into his pack he pulled out a light and used it to check around, eyes going wide when he realized what dwelled below the Burned Tower, "….Ooooohh… hell."

Apparently Unown didn't need light to float around and be creepy. They'd done it once before at those ruins outside of Violet City, and Naruto had hoped he'd seen the last of them, but they were right there in front of him, simply meandering aimlessly around the vast cavern underneath the tower as if they were waiting on something.

Well they hadn't attacked him and tried to massacre him yet the way that they had after being stirred from their apparent slumber in Ruins of Alph, so that was something at least. He took his hands out of the seal for forming his clones and picked up his light, "Oi, 'Nina, I think you should be checking down here if you want to find something cool!"

"Don't call me that. But really? Why?"

"I don't think anyone's been down here except the Unown."

Janine had not forgotten how spontaneously violent those particular Pokémon could be, "What? There are Unown down there? Get back up here then!"

Naruto ignored her. He didn't know why, but he did. The young ninja walked his way through the cavern until he found three old statues. Three large four-legged, magnificent-looking beasts. They were even bigger than Ranbouen, which was impressive and daunting all by itself.

Upon getting close enough to them, the dozens of Unown began to glow red and all shot beams of red energy at the three statues. Naruto stood at the ready for trouble, but he wasn't their focus. It was just the statues.

By then he'd been joined by his two female companions who were in awe at what they were seeing, "Babyface, did you do something?"

"I didn't do anything," Naruto didn't even have it in him to feel offended that Janine assumed he'd somehow created this incident. He was mesmerized by the sight, same as the other two. The statues seemed to be gaining color and actual life to them, "…What the hell?"

One was tiger-like. Yellow in color with black markings on its sides and legs, it possessed a thin lightning bolt kind of tail and a long purple mane that rolled together like clouds. It had a black faceplate on its forehead and its muzzle had a blue x-shaped pattern over it, two long fangs hanging down from its mouth.

The second was bigger and broader than the others, with thicker brown fur, a gray smoky mane, and gray plates on both sides of its back. It had four black rings around each of its legs, a red star-shaped faceplate, a yellow three-pointed crest on its forehead, and a gray plate over its muzzle that resembled a mustache.

The third of the three was slim in comparison to the other two. Blue with diamond-shaped spots, it had two white streamer-like tails, red eyes, a white muzzle, a hexagon crest on its head with two prongs at the bottom, and a flowing purple mane that seemed to shine in different colors when the light hit it.

The yellow beast roared with the force of crashing thunder, followed by the brown one, its voice booming like an explosion.

The third one just regarded the three humans warily, suspicion in its narrowed eyes.

Jasmine's mouth opened ever so slightly, remembering another portion of the Burned Tower's past legend, "…150 years ago the Brass Tower was struck by a bolt of lightning, caught ablaze, and was finally put out by a sudden downpour," She said, reciting it all from memory, "The inescapable fire caused three unnamed Pokémon to vanish in the fire and caused Johto's revered guardian of the seas to find a new place to roost."

"So ah…" Naruto said, squinting his eyes as a bead of sweat ran down his face. His initial track record with legendaries wasn't exactly spotless, "…Those three Pokémon that didn't have names. Were they friendly?"

Jasmine never got the chance to answer as a massive earthquake rocked the cavern and almost immediately caused a cave-in.

The three Pokémon before them and all of the Unown were not amused.

Because… you know, otherwise everything would have been too smooth and easy.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Center of Ecruteak City)

Sitting in a lotus position on the ground and ignoring the panicking townspeople as they fled for somewhere safe from the devastation of the earthquake, a tall heavily muscled man with long spiky black hair in a ponytail simply let it all happen around him.

After all, the mayhem was of his design to begin with.

"This should give Lance all of the time he needs to find what he was looking for," The man said to himself, slowly rising from the ground, never compromising his balance for a moment despite the constant rumbling of the ground, "I'm surprised the Gym Leader hasn't found me yet though."

Then again, he had released a few dozen Machops to trash the older portion of the city. That would be the first place that would garner protection from those with influence. Morty and the Kimono Girls would protect that place before they would try to look for the source of the Earthquake attack.

Lance was nowhere near there however, and his actions would for the most part be disguised.

Bruno's steps on the street suddenly stopped and he turned to stare a short distance away at a particular portion of the ground that burst open, an Arcanine emerging with three people riding on its back, 'That's interesting,' He thought to himself.

"Nice moves Babyface," Janine said to Naruto, holding her head, bleeding slightly from a small gash she received due to falling debris, "If the earthquake wouldn't have killed us, those three giant Pokémon would have."

Naruto was the first to make it off of Ranbouen's back, breathing heavily out of relief that they'd made it out of there in one piece, "What just happened!?"

Jasmine shook her head, "That was a Pokémon's attack. There's no fault line anywhere near here and real earthquakes don't last nearly as long as that one did," Getting a chance to look around at the ruined architecture of the city, she covered her mouth in shock, "Oh God."

Bruno simply stared at the younger trainers and noted the identities of all three of them, 'The Gym Leaders of Olivine City and Fuchsia City. And from that boy's appearance, I'm guessing he would be the Naruto boy.'

Naruto returned Ranbouen to his Poké Ball before noticing that they weren't alone, "Hey! Is this because of you!?"

His suspicion wasn't randomly placed. The calmest person in a situation like this tended to be the one causing the trouble. That aside, the guy looked the part. If the bouts with Team Rocket had taught Naruto anything, it was that one person could definitely do things like this by themselves.

Janine's head was still rather cloudy from the blow she'd taken to her head, but she was quickly able to put two-and-two together, 'Spiky black hair in a ponytail. Tan and muscular. Tattered gi pants,' She'd heard of a person going by this description before. He was a rather legendary figure in both Johto and Kanto alike, "T-That's… there's no way. That's Bruno!"

What was this!? Why was Bruno there, attacking Ecruteak City? One of the strongest people on the continent, what business did he have doing such a thing?

Naruto turned his head toward her and tilted it in confusion, "Who the hell is Bruno?" Was he supposed to know who that was or something?

"One of the Elite Four! The strongest fighting Pokémon trainer in the world!"

Naruto turned back to Bruno, but to his surprise he was already on the attack. Naruto back handsprung out of the way of a punch that crushed the ground underneath him. The guy was as fast and as strong as he looked. Looking at the crater in the ground, he already wasn't looking forward to testing his taijutsu on Bruno.

"You're quick on your feet," Bruno said, pulling his fist out of the ground, Naruto noticed two iron bangles he wore on his wrists. He could still punch that fast with those on his arms. They would only make him hit that much harder if anything landed, "But you can't win."

As if prompted by his declaration, the ground underneath Bruno burst and the largest Onix any of them had ever seen emerged from the ground, carrying its trainer on its head.

Naruto grit his teeth as the rock snake let out a bellowing roar, "Sazakumoru!" With that call, Naruto let go of a Poké Ball that released a brown bipedal Pokémon with a solid white head and a bone in its hand, "Let's go!"

"A Marowak," Bruno pointed out from his extremely elevated position, "Well at least you know enough about type advantage if nothing else."

"Bonemerang!"

Sazakumoru hurled her bone up at Bruno, knowing that he was who her master intended to take aim at. Bruno didn't panic for a moment, instead taking a deep breath in a defensive stance, timing his movements perfectly as he blocked the bone with the bangles on his wrists.

The chance that a blow like that would land on Bruno so easily; not likely.

As he blocked however, Naruto managed to him, Rasengan in hand. He'd been quick enough in movement to surprise not only Bruno, but the Onix whose body he had to run up the length of to reach Bruno. It quickly realized, feeling the rapid steps up its body that its trainer was in danger and violently shook its head, throwing Naruto off into the air before he could end things just as quickly as they began.

Naruto found himself caught out of the air by Janine's Golbat who quickly lowered him back to the ground, "Okay, well that didn't work," Fortune favored the bold though, so it had been worth a shot.

"We can't beat someone like this one-on-one. Even Gym Leaders can't hold a candle to them alone," Janine said, a grave expression etched on her face, "The Elite Four are the absolute best. The Pokémon they train are monsters, they're so strong. Just look at that thing. It's the size of a regular Onix and a half!"

Jasmine pulled out a Poké Ball and closed her eyes, "I don't have many Pokémon that could even hope to stand up to Bruno's Onix, but I do have one. Steelix!"

Her chosen battler was a gargantuan iron snake with spines on its sections of body that seemed to spin and rotate, chunking up the ground as it did. A shiver went down Janine's spine at the thought of finding a way for her poison Pokémon team to defeat such a creature.

Even so, Bruno's Onix was larger, and he didn't seem shaken in the slightest at having to take on the evolved form of the Pokémon he'd chosen as his main for the day.

That didn't make Jasmine's training of one any less impressive. These were some remarkable children. He could admit that much. The girl with the Golbat wasn't afraid to take him on. The girl on the Steelix had managed to accomplish the task of training an Onix into its evolved state. The boy had attacked him with no regard for the consequences that would come with taking on a fighting master like himself head-on. He'd even come close to striking a crippling if not killing blow.

This would be a great battle. It made Bruno's blood boil in anticipation.

Jasmine stood on the head of her Steelix, unafraid of the height and the conflict at hand despite her docile nature. A Gym Leader that was afraid of fighting was no real trainer at all.

"I train steel-type Pokémon," She said to her new friends before addressing Bruno with a heartfelt avowal, "I am Jasmine, the leader of the Olivine City Pokémon Gym. You've desecrated this town and hurt the people that live here. I won't forgive you for that. I will be your opponent."

"Janine of Fuchsia City Pokémon Gym," Janine said, allowing her Golbat to lift her off of the ground by Ariados' String Shot attached to the two of them, "You almost got three really powerful Pokémon to tear us apart because of your stupid Earthquake, and you almost killed us with it yourself. So now I'm taking it out of your fat head."

Naruto flipped a kunai in his hand before pointing it at Bruno as Sazakumoru hid behind him tugging on his pant leg. Some things just didn't change. Even after being strong enough to evolve, she was something of a baby at heart, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and all you need to know about me is that I'm gonna kick your ass!"

Short and sweet. He could gloat over Bruno's beaten body when and if they got that far.

Bruno didn't say anything at first, instead simply reaching into the back of his gi pants to retrieve a set of nunchucks with Poké Balls on the ends, "Determined children, perfect for a battle of this nature. I hope you're all aware that you'll be getting no mercy from me. Removing two Gym Leaders from the equation would only make things go smoother for us in the long run."

"Blah-blah-blah," Naruto taunted, miming yappily with his hand, tired of the whole dog and pony show, "If you want some, come and get some already!"

"Fair enough boy!" Bruno said, kneeling down and patting his gargantuan Onix on the head, prompting it to charge forward with a roar.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Just Outside of Ecruteak City – Tin Tower)

"Tch. Nothing," Lance said, tossing the last of the Pokémon training monks to the ground after a crushing victory over them. He hadn't even needed to bring out his Dragonite to get the job done. Its lesser evolution was enough to put them all down, "I doubt the guardian of the seas would take kindly to weaklings like you protecting it, or the guardian of the sky for that matter."

His Dragonair continued to search the several stories of the tower for any remaining resistance to stamp out while Lance looked over at Ecruteak City through an open window. All of Bruno's efforts and not only was there no Lugia or Ho-Oh inside of the Tin Tower as the Johto legends said one of them would be, there was no sign of anything at all that would lead him to the next clue of their whereabouts.

'If I only had that power on my side, humanity would pay for the injustices done to Pokémon,' He thought to himself. Bruno had done a grand job occupying the city's powerhouses. The first person he'd expected to try and stop him was Ecruteak City's Gym Leader Morty, but apparently he'd slipped into the tower under enough cover of panic that Morty wouldn't be aware that he'd been there until long after he'd gone from that place.

Not that Morty would have been able to stop him in the slightest, but it still would have been inconvenient.

As he observed what he could from the uppermost story of the tower, something particular caught his eye.

Three quick moving streaks taking off in three different directions away from Ecruteak City. One red, one yellow, one blue.

A smile spread across his face and slowly morphed into a grin at the magnificent sight.

"I guess I can consider the trail hot again."

* * *

><p><strong>Okay, so watching Seattle drop a double-deuce asswhooping on Denver last week made me really glad that I was at work the whole time instead of at home. Otherwise I would have been bored out of my mind for four hours during the Super Bowl. <strong>

**Hooray for gainful employment! Those dark, dark days of retail are far behind me!**

…**By like a month.**

**Anyway, next chapter Bruno takes on three of the good guys at once. And yes, Bruno is that strong. Bruno from Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow would absolutely wreck Jasmine and Janine both. Easily. Back-to-back with no healing in between. **

**So Silver's doin' stuff, Legendaries are out and about…**

…**And Jiraiya gets himself a piece of the Elite Four. 'Nuff said.**

**Kenchi out.**


	24. Just Another Day

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon.

...It's super effective...

**Chapter 24: Just Another Day**

* * *

><p>One would think that an Onix wasn't a particularly quick Pokémon, but as far as rock Pokémon went, especially for its size, it was pretty much the fastest. Normal Onix were fairly fast, and with their mass that made them incredibly dangerous. Once again, these were under conventional circumstances.<p>

This was an even bigger than the average Onix… trained by Bruno of the Elite Four. In so many words, it was not a normal Onix.

That much became clear if it hadn't been from the outset of the conflict once Bruno took the initiative.

Naruto couldn't believe it at first. Was he really getting the literal run-around from a goddamn Onix? That was what appeared to be happening?

"I didn't know an Onix could learn Agility," Janine said, finding the speed that Bruno's Onix moved with absolutely staggering.

"It's not Agility," Jasmine informed them, knowing full well what that type of Pokémon was capable of, "An Onix moving at full momentum can go past fifty miles per hour, even when tunneling underground," And this Onix belonged to one of the absolute best trainers in the world.

Well whatever it was, it was going to stop now if Naruto had any say, "Saza-chan, Focus Energy and wait," Naruto said, directing his Marowak to begin building her energy for a precise release. As she did that, Naruto kept his eyes on Bruno's Onix as it circled them three more times looking for an opening to attack.

Naruto was doing the same.

"Bone Rush!" Naruto's command was timely enough for Sazakumoru to launch a preemptive strike and it was quickly clear that she had gotten the jump on Bruno's Onix, its speed aside.

Bruno grit his teeth, knowing what an attack like that would do to his Pokémon, and prompted his Onix to divert its attack and attempt another approach, "Rock Throw!" He could potentially get them all at once as strong as his Onix's Rock Throw was.

It stopped and lifted its tail in the air for a sudden slam that sent massive chunks of the Ecruteak City road flying up into the air, arcing toward Naruto, Janine, and Jasmine.

At this juncture, an attack wasn't going to work, and to Naruto, Sazakumoru's health came first, "Saza-chan, cancel that! Bone Club on the rocks!"

Sazakumoru nodded and refocused on the rocks falling right at her and all of the others. She could only do anything about the ones that were headed for her, as if Naruto needed the help he would have said so. Waiting for them to come in, she smashed them all with a single shot each, rendering anything that came within her reach to rubble.

"Babyface's Marowak's reaction time is so good!" Janine exclaimed, having taken cover with her Golbat in the protective embrace of Jasmine's Steelix, "But that Onix…"

Jasmine cringed with every metallic thud that sounded off of her Pokémon's iron carcass, "If we go too far, all we're going to do is destroy more of the town," She wanted to use Earthquake, but that would completely obliterate what was left of the immediate area after the first one that had already taken place, "But I don't think he would care."

He was behind the attack, so clearly he cared little for whatever damage was done to the city.

As the rocks continued to fall and dust kicked up in the air from the attack, Janine's eyes were able to pick up the beginnings of motion through it. A big motion, "Bruno's going for Naruto."

"Steelix, Stone Edge!" Jasmine ordered from her Steelix. Pieces of stone that had already hit the Pokémon and broken into smaller sharp segments levitated off of the ground around it and flew out at Bruno's concealed Onix.

The well-aimed distance attack disrupted Bruno's Onix enough that its attempt to lift and slam its tail down onto Naruto and Sazakumoru missed and created an opening, "Saza-chan, Bone Rush!"

With one quick stride, Sazakumoru ran past the portion of Onix's body in contact with the ground, stopping on the other side, holding her bone in a sheathing motion. Two swift attacks, both while approaching and departing had landed, drawing a pained roar from the massive creature.

Any praise Naruto could give for the crippling blow being struck gave way when he felt the presence of the enemy and covered up in time to block a powerful straight punch that had done its level best to smash every bone in his chest. Simply blocking the punch knocked Naruto to his backside. Ten feet away.

Placing his hands on the ground to brace himself, Naruto shot his foot up to kick Bruno in the face when he moved forward to pummel him. One of Bruno's large hands blocked the responsive attack and held the offending limb high, leaving Naruto vulnerable to a low kick that sent his body sliding across the ground like a puck.

'This guy!' Naruto thought to himself, rolling over onto all fours to stop his momentum and hop back up to his feet, 'Was that all him?' Even the punch he'd blocked felt like a hit from a strongman with a hammer, "Okay, no more letting him touch me."

"You say that as if you have a choice in the matter," Bruno said, having gotten up-close and personal with Naruto one more time. He'd felt how durable his body was. As adept and fit as Naruto was, he was flesh and bone like any other human. With his strength and speed, a single clean hit would be all he needed to debilitate the boy enough to at least focus on the others.

…It was just that landing it was more difficult than he would have thought.

This time, Naruto wasn't occupied by a secondary threat and could focus on Bruno directly. Bruno was fast, he was strong, but after being terrorized in the wilds of the Safari Zone for the better part of a year he was used to dodging attacks that had the potential to hurt him badly if they landed.

If nothing else, Jiraiya made sure he knew what _that _was like.

Naruto's ability to avoid everything thrown at him from that point forward was a troublesome addendum to the battle as far as Bruno was concerned. He had taken down high-level Pokémon with his bare hands that were easier to hit than this boy, who simply wouldn't hold still again after being hit the first time.

"Onix!" Bruno commanded, causing the creature to break off from its ongoing struggle with Naruto's Marowak to slide across the ground to them. Without hesitation, he grabbed the rock snake by the very end of its tail. This was clearly a practiced tactic, "Harden," He swung all of Onix's 500 pounds, right at Naruto and Sazakumoru, as if it were a flail. A living, roaring, 20-plus foot flail.

In a panic, Naruto was able to reach Sazakumoru and scoop her up in an effort to help her avoid being crushed. He was far more evasive than she was, but it didn't matter when there was little room for Bruno to possibly miss.

"Babyface, duck!"

Naruto listened and did as commanded, only for a horrible metal crash to ring out above him. Jasmine's Steelix had bridged its body over him and Sazakumoru to protect them. Bruno's Onix wasted absolutely no time in wrapping the length of its body around the width of Steelix, holding it in place as it opened its mouth by its head.

"Dragon Breath!"

Onix fired a thick, yellow-green beam from its maw that hit Steelix right in the face. Naruto and Sazakumoru were able to get out from underneath before Steelix's body spasmed uncontrollably and collapsed onto the ground.

"No!" Jasmine cried out, seeing the effects of the attack already taking place.

Steelix let out a groan of pain as the segments of its body locked up and kept it from properly moving. Paralyzing a Pokémon like an Onix or a Steelix was more effective than doing so with other Pokémon. Because their bodies were comprised of segments that needed to work together in order for it to move effectively, if one part was unable to do so it would spell disaster.

Bruno had to have known that, which was why he hadn't chosen to target Steelix from the outset as the greatest threat despite its size and power being capable of matching or outperforming his Onix.

A sinking feeling started to gather in the pit of Janine's stomach after watching an Onix drop a Steelix, with a move it shouldn't have been able to use, for more than one reason, "Where the hell did an Onix learn Dragon Breath?" She asked under her breath, "It's hard for even dragon-types to learn that move!"

It would have taken a master trainer of dragons to even move the knowledge of Dragon Breath on to a Pokémon of a type so grossly different from dragons like an Onix. Naruto felt a grave sense of their situation. While he wasn't necessarily expert enough on raising Pokémon to know everything about this, that, and whatever, he knew enough to know that Janine knew her stuff, and if something was enough to impress her it was worth taking stock in.

Naruto had managed to observe that the best trainers either had fighting abilities of their own that the vast majority of people on the continent couldn't match (Lt. Surge, Koga, and even Giovanni had been no slouch on his own), or they had something else about them personally that made them formidable (i.e. Sabrina and her psychic abilities).

Bruno was clearly at the very peaks of human physical ability.

"There are more Pokémon than humans that dwell in these lands," Bruno said as if reciting a mantra, "Why do humans have their run of things? Why do humans use the Pokémon as servants and pets? As if they were inferior. They abuse the resources and damage the places that Pokémon call home. But that won't be the case for much longer. It's only a matter of time now."

"Night Shade!"

Onix let out a roar of pain as a blast from a jagged, dark energy beam hit it squarely in the back. Still held up in the air by Janine's Golbat, her Ariados kept firing down Night Shade after Night Shade, seemingly annoying the gigantic enemy creature. It was a novel way of having her Pokémon create some anarchy from a range, but it would only work for so long before Bruno took steps to stop it.

"You're spamming Night Shade now?" Naruto asked, moving a tired Sazakumoru out of the immediate danger zone with Onix and Bruno's attention temporarily taken away. She'd need a quick breather

"Hey, Golbat and Ariados don't really have anything else that'll hurt a giant snake made out of rocks!" Janine shot back.

All of Janine's Pokémon were at a distinct disadvantage against a huge rock-type, if not because of outright type disadvantage, simply because most of their attacks couldn't hurt an Onix.

Forretress was the only one that had moves that could, and it wasn't quick enough on its own. It would require Naruto and Sazakumoru to technically have to tank in order to create an opening for it to do anything other than make an uncharacteristically flimsy living shield.

The Fuchsia City Gym Leader looked over their temporary cover of a ruined house before looking at the Marowak that Naruto had brought with him. More specifically, the bone in her hand, "…Hey, let Sazakumoru try and take another crack at him."

"What, now? Why?"

"Because I have an idea."

XxX

(With Jiraiya – Mt. Silver)

Jiraiya had no idea why he had expected good things to happen when he went off to the mountains. Probably because the last time he had aimlessly wound up in a mountain of some sort in his youth, he wound up with the ability to summon toads. Thus, nostalgia demanded that something else just as whimsical and positive would happen in the wilds of Mt. Silver.

This was not the case. Now it was looking like he'd been funneled up to Mt. Silver from Tohjo Falls after Lance's little ambush, only to wind up being weakened in a freak blizzard that quite literally came out of nowhere. Why was this suspicious? Because Jiraiya wasn't some rube that didn't know how to read weather patterns! If the weather was about to shift that rapidly, he would have been able to see it before it happened!

If it looked like a trap, felt like a trap, smelled like a trap, and let off a gigantic beacon of being a damn trap, it was more than likely that you were already stuck in the middle of it. In which case the only way out wasn't back the way you came, it was straight on through to the other side of it.

Clad in his normal wooden sandals, Jiraiya trudged through the shin-deep snow with an expression of grim determination on his face as his breath blew from his nose in puffs of mist. The Pokémon Continent was a deathtrap. He had to remind himself of this every time he started to think that it was a nice, safe place. It was like the Elemental Nations, only the wildlife actually had more potential to be dangerous than the people.

…Per capita at least. In this instance, he doubted that a wild Pokémon was the one trying to keep him trapped and steer him farther up the mountain with this much tenacity.

'Right,' Jiraiya thought to himself, not amused by his own plan of action that had yet to take shape, 'Well, this next part isn't going to be very fun.'

And with that thought, his steps slowed until he fell to his knees and then face-first into the snow where he didn't move again. Several minutes passed as his body was covered, burying him along with the rest of it.

A very large, snow-white sea-lion creature with a single horn on its head slowly slid itself belly-first through the snow and ice, its body concealed from easy view by the blizzard conditions and its own natural body color. Standing on its back as it slowly made its way toward where Jiraiya fell, a woman with red hair in a ponytail rode her way to the site as well. She wore glasses and a black and lavender dress that clung to her figure, over which she wore a thick coat to give some semblance of protection from the harsh elements of her Pokémon's own creation.

"He lasted far longer than he should have in this," She commented to herself as she reached the subtle lump in the snow bed that was Jiraiya's body, "What a frighteningly powerful human being. I don't think Bruno would have been able to endure conditions like this for as long as this man did."

It was no wonder that Lance had seen him as a threat simply from one meeting. To survive a berserk carnivorous Pokémon like an Aerodactyl, a Hyper Beam from Lance's Dragonite and the resulting cave-in of the falls, and then to make it all the way to Mt. Silver _without_ the sole beaten path in existence that actually led there. This wasn't just any regular human.

Either way, he was down now, and she had to confirm his death. If he escaped Tohjo Falls, there was no such thing as being too safe with whoever this was.

"Dewgong," She said, prompting the ice Pokémon to swipe its flipper against the snow to send it flying, only to reveal nothing underneath but a log the size of a person, "What in the-?"

"On this continent and all beyond, the mortal doth not exist that can lay claim as his superior in the manliest of arts!" A booming voice echoed through the howling winds of the blizzard.

The woman raised an eyebrow and looked around as if she could find a way to spot the source somewhere through the white-out, "And you are?"

"The man! The myth! The legend! Descended from the peaks of Mt. Myoboku to make the men weep in shame and the women remove their undergarment of choice at the mere sight of his majesty and glory; the all-powerful Sage of Toads, Jiraiya!"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…Right. You can't see me."

The woman snapped her fingers and in a matter of seconds, the blizzard lightened up, causing Jiraiya's position forty yards away atop a snow-covered boulder in his introduction stance to be visible, "How about now?"

"Ah," Jiraiya said, standing straight up and brushing the snow off of his shoulders, "Much better. And who would you be my dear? You know, if you wanted to get me alone, you didn't have to trap me on a mountain to do it. I would have gladly made time for a lovely woman like yourself."

Said woman was not as fascinated by his introduction as she was by him, instead taking the time to observe him up close. He was as massive as Bruno was, with considerable vitality to last in a storm as heavy as the one she'd been having her Pokémon cause. And he still had the cheek to try and hit on her as well, "You're quite impressive."

Jiraiya's jaw-dropped before he quickly recovered and composed himself with a laugh, "Of course. Now, what, pray tell, can I do for you?"

"I'm here to extend an invitation to you," She said, with a slight bow, "My name is Lorelei, of the Elite Four, and you've shown over the last few days to be quite powerful. Lance has asked me to extend an invitation to you if I found you alive and well."

The smile quickly fell from Jiraiya's face and his eyes hardened at the mention of Lance. The memory was still fresh of that man's treachery. He had no idea what he'd done to Naruto's Aerodactyl, but the subsequent blast that leveled Tohjo Falls came close to killing them, "An invitation?"

"Humans take advantage of Pokémon, destroy their habitats at a whim just for their own comfort," Lorelei explained, "But you've shown that you have something of an understanding for nature, despite being from another place. You're one of the few humans we want in our new world."

Jiraiya most certainly was not a fan of how this was turning out. He didn't need to hear more. Putting two and two together was easy enough from there, "Did I really strike Lance as the type to agree to something like that? I mean, as far as recruiters go…" He took a moment to leer at her, "…He probably couldn't have done better."

But if it were that easy to make Jiraiya do something so huge, he probably would have conquered Hi no Kuni in the name of some women from the red light district in some random town by now.

"Not really," Lorelei admitted, prompting her Dewgong to unleash a blast of an Aurora Beam from its horn, "Which is why I was asked to kill you when you turned the offer down."

That was Jiraiya's cue to start doing something action, as if he really needed it.

He was able to avoid the shot and slip away. In that terrain he was automatically at a disadvantage, but he was able to fake a Shunshin to disguise his movements with a burst of snow at the moment he began running.

Dewgong spun on its belly, the ice easily allowing it to glide and keep its aim on Jiraiya as he continued to outrun the blast of energy. With the snow trail kicked up behind him and the speed at which he'd been running, Jiraiya managed to hide the fact that he'd been slowly drawing the circle he'd been running around Dewgong inward.

By the time she realized what he'd been doing, it was too late to change her approach.

It didn't take much for Jiraiya to realize that Lorelei didn't have anything to answer how fast he was when he was able to overtake her Dewgong and quickly grab it by the tail. He lifted it up before it could get a good look at him and recognize where it needed to attack. Letting go of the Pokémon just as it left the snowy ground, Jiraiya blasted it with a powerful kick.

With the quick loss of one of her most battle-ready Pokémon, Lorelei beat a quick retreat into the storm that her other Pokémon were causing elsewhere, 'I won't give him the opportunity.'

Jiraiya's attack on had given Lorelei's Jynx all the time she needed for enacting one of her contingency plans.

Her Jynx attacked Jiraiya with a Double Slap, only for him to easily block it. This was playing out roughly how he expected it. In a direct fight, he was the superior combatant. But then, it appeared that actually hitting him hadn't been the point of the Jynx's attack.

The eeriest singing that Jiraiya had ever heard in his entire life emanated from the Pokémon's mouth before it disengaged from him and drifted back into the blizzard. Didn't Lorelei send it at him to try and keep him from catching up to her in the snowstorm?

Grunting to himself, Jiraiya immediately took to trying to track the beautiful trainer through the inclement weather. He wasn't going to find his way off of the mountain otherwise, and he still had questions he needed answered.

He was going to get his damn answers, even if it killed him. This was turning out to be too dangerous to leave alone. First Lance, now Lorelei, and apparently there were two more other than them. Unfortunately, the 'if it killed him' part was set to come back sooner than he'd expected.

"Five minutes!" Lorelei's voice called out from the deep, howling wind of the blizzard, as if answering his question, "Anyone or anything that hears the Perish Song lives for five minutes, even the Pokémon that uses it. In five minutes your heart will stop!"

A technique called Perish Song? A murder-suicide technique?

...Damn it.

Jiraiya had to let out a laugh, one that was actually humorous despite his situation. It was definitely just his luck to be faced with such a situation, and it was also just like him to hardly care about his would-be fate in the slightest.

"Well then," Jiraiya said mostly to himself, because he knew Lorelei couldn't hear him over the wind, "I guess I'm beating you in five minutes aren't I?"

XxX

(Ecruteak City – With Naruto)

As game as they were, Janine's Golbat and Ariados were only able to keep Onix at bay for so long. In the end, their battle was one meant to buy as much time as possible. It was battle that came to an abrupt end when Bruno timed the speed of Golbat's flyby well enough to put them both down.

"Rock Throw!"

Upon Bruno's command, Onix threw its entire body at the ground, sending dozens of large rocks flying into the air and hitting Golbat and Ariados both going up and coming down. Both the bug and the flying Pokémon were smashed into the dirt below.

It was super effective. They were out of commission before they had even hit land.

"Hm," Bruno said, looking over his foe's defeated Pokémon. He spared them a glance before returning his attention to Jasmine and her injured Steelix. Unlike Naruto and Janine, it was too large to be so easily moved, and Jasmine didn't want to call it back into its Poké Ball until she was certain that it would be okay.

That left a very large, very prime target, with its very small, very fragile by comparison human target in clear sight.

Bruno pointed at Steelix with iron in his voice, "Bulldoze, and make sure you hit the girl," Even if her body was shielded by her Steelix, if it was moved enough to crush her it would still work as it was meant to.

Onix let out a roar and lifted its head into the air, preparing to slam it on the ground when Bruno noticed something flying through the air at him. Turning just in time, he caught a spinning bone that had been flying at his head. He was utterly unamused at the timely intervention that had canceled out his attempted attack.

But something about that bone didn't feel right.

In a puff of smoke, the bone transformed into Naruto who had his hand drawn back for a Rasengan to the face. Bruno's eyes opened wide as he avoided the attack by the hairs on his chin. In immediate response he slammed a knee into Naruto's belly, and he opened his mouth to begin a lecture when he felt a skull-rattling blow impact off of the back of his head.

Both Naruto and Bruno fell off of Onix's head, and a grin crossed Naruto's face as they did, "Good girl Saza-chan."

A Bonemerang coupled with a Shadow Shuriken Jutsu and a Henge.

Damn it, when Janine was on with her ideas she was really on. That girl had a divine spark for trickery and sleight of hand. A person after Naruto's own heart, and it was much appreciated.

The two combatants hit the ground and bounced away from each other before they slowly started to stand up. Bruno's head had been split wide open and covered in his own blood from the wound. That sort of impact would have killed a normal person, but the muscular trainer only winced once before masking his pain behind an air of focus.

He pulled out a pair of nunchucks with Poké Balls on the ends and swung it Naruto's way, sending one of them flying his way. Naruto charged him down, but as the Poké Ball flew, it opened up to reveal a Machop aiming a Karate Chop right at Naruto.

Naruto dodged it and stopped long enough to ensure that it would stay down for the count, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

He didn't linger long enough to even see how much damage he'd done. There were bigger fish to fry, but the small reprieve from Naruto's rush had given Bruno enough time to remount his Onix and use Dig to head underground and escape.

Naruto stopped at the base of the hole but didn't try to pursue him down. Instead putting his fingers to his mouth and letting out a loud whistle as a signal, "Earthquake!"

From one end of the designated battlefield, Sazakumoru began smashing her bone repeatedly against the ground, causing it to shake heavily, and on the other side, Jasmine's Steelix managed to pull itself together enough to drill into the ground with its tail, causing a second one.

Naruto braced himself and hunkered down as best as he could. It felt for him as if the world around him would tear itself apart at the seams and fold over itself. All he had to do was endure. This had been the plan the entire time; to pressure Bruno into using Dig one last time.

Naruto and Jasmine hadn't been using Earthquake because it would have done even more damage to Ecruteak City. They had been fighting to keep Bruno from using his most destructive attacks or from summoning more of his high-level superpowered Pokémon to battle with. In that sense they had also been restrained from doing everything they could have to bring him down. Therefore, a trap was in order.

Sazakumoru, powerful Marowak that she was, had been instructed to wait at one end of the battlefield with Naruto for an opening to use Bonemerang. Afterwards she would then wait for Bruno's Onix to use Dig, and then unleash an Earthquake.

One the other end of the battlefield where Jasmine was, Janine had been dispatched to retrieve her own Pokémon and convey the Olivine City Gym Leader's role in the plan. She was meant to remain in a vulnerable state, to draw Bruno's attention long enough to set the first stage of the plan into action. Then, when he finally used Dig, she would unleash and Earthquake at the very same time as Sazakumoru.

The two attacks, aimed in opposite directions, would limit the range of the other, keeping each from getting too out of control outside of the range of the battlefield while compounding upon the power of the move within the predetermined confines.

It had to be very precise and well-timed, otherwise there would have been nothing but rubble left of the rustic old city.

Fortunately, Jasmine was a professional, and coordination was something that she had practice at. It was all Naruto could to to hang in there and keep from being overwhelmed by the dual Earthquake. As the ground tossed, turned, and tore apart, his clothes and skin were gaffed by the disturbed pieces of earth. Fifteen seconds of topographical hell.

Why did all of his plans have to put him in potential mortal danger to be accomplished? Probably because that was the best way to sell a gambit. No one ever expected a trap when it would put the person springing it in as much peril as the one it was intended for. What sane person would put themselves in the crossfire of something that could kill them just to defeat someone else?

As things seemed to calm down, Naruto let go of the chakra death-grip he'd put onto the ground and stood back up, looking around as the sound of the Earthquake echoed out into the open air. His entire body still shook from the intense tremors, and he still couldn't stop his teeth from involuntarily clacking together.

There was no sign of Bruno though, and the tunnels his Onix dug out had collapsed. If he had been caught underground when the Earthquake had occurred, he would have gotten so much more damage it would have been scary.

Naruto wiped the dirt and grime away from his face and walked across the battlefield to the girls, looking for any sign of Bruno's reemergence as he did. Sazakumoru running up to him and attaching herself to one of his legs affectionately almost knocked him over, but he stood strong and smiled at her, rubbing the top of the Marowak's head.

"Good thing I've got other clothes to wear," Naruto said as he grabbed at his ruined shirt upon reaching Janine and Jasmine, along with the latter's Steelix, "...Is it over?"

Jasmine returned Steelix to its Poké Ball and gave it a kiss before stashing it away, "Steelix couldn't feel anything moving in the area. I think Bruno would have resurfaced or tried a counterattack by now," That had been far too close. It had taken all three of them to fight one member of the Elite Four, 'If I had to battle him alone, I wouldn't have been able to win.'

Janine held back from fussing over Naruto once she saw that his wounds weren't necessarily bleeding. She let out a small breath of relief and gave him a strong pat on the shoulders instead of the hug that her body had originally been moving for, "Well, that's a wrap... right?" She asked no one in particular, "...I hope?"

XxX

(Outside of Ecruteak City – Route 42)

A peaceful, beaten dirt road was disturbed when a muscular arm clawed its way free and pulled out the well-built body of Bruno, a Poké Ball in his other hand containing his fainted Onix. Enduring the Earthquake, it had managed to almost Dig them the rest of the way out of the city before its health had outright failed.

Bruno had clawed his way out of the ground after his Onix's efforts had petered out while they were still caught underground.

His entire body was covered in blood and bruises, and his breaths came out ragged and labored.

'I didn't expect them to use Earthquake at all,' Bruno thought to himself as he crawled along in the road. He'd been counting on using the safety of Ecruteak City as a method to limit how loose Naruto, Jasmine, and Janine would allow themselves to get with their attacks, allowing him to overpower them, and it had worked for most of the battle, "The way they fought was to protect the city. They had to be very skilled to find a way to use an attack like that and keep from destroying more than they intended."

A shadow passed over him, causing him to look up, as the creature who caused it flew lower and swept closer. Bruno allowed his battle-aware demeanor to fall as he sat up on his knees, "Ah, Lance..." Bruno said as the dragon master's Dragonite landed and he dismounted the powerful creature, "Ugh, did you find what you needed?"

"I'm afraid not," Lance said, much to Bruno's displeasure. That meant he'd been defeated for nothing, "But, a very good thing has come as a result of your attack on the city."

Bruno winced as he tried to gain enough composure to stand back up, "What would that be?"

Lance's demeanor changed, from serious and confident, to almost maniacally giddy at what he'd seen from the heights of Tin Tower, "The Three Legendary Beasts have reawakened," Lance revealed with a large grin slowly spreading across his face, "The next step in seeing to the reappearance of Ho-Oh and Lugia."

His original plan that had been set for Kanto may have needed to be tweaked for Johto, but it didn't make a difference. Either way, he would get what he was aiming for. He and the Elite Four would see to that.

The others could fight and stand against his will as much as they wanted, but it wouldn't change a thing. Lugia and Ho-Oh would eventually return, and Lance would be there to make sure that they retook the Pokémon Continent for the Pokémon. The humans would not be allowed to destroy it further.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Mt. Silver)

At times discretion was the better part of valor, and conversely the best way to win a battle was to refrain from fighting it altogether. In this case it would cost Lorelei the life of her Jynx, but to take down someone as disgustingly powerful as Jiraiya it was worth it.

The way she fought was logical, cool, calm, collected. She could not take Jiraiya in a straight fight. That much was evident. It wasn't as if it were her strongest Jynx she were putting on the line anyway. She still had the one with special abilities safely in reserve.

The situation was well in hand. She would stop a major threat to the Elite Four's plans and while the loss she would incur would be distasteful, it was acceptable in this instance.

Jiraiya had heard the Perish Song. It was only a matter of time, and Lorelei had been counting down every second as she'd tried to lose herself in the snowblind.

Still, hiding from him was an exercise of patience and nerves. His clothes stood out in the pure white of a blizzard, and he was so large in comparison that there couldn't have been any way for him to sneak up on her theoretically. She had the most relevant advantages. Time was on her side, they were in her element, and she didn't need to actually fight him to win. She just needed to stay away for two more minutes. When her Jynx finally expired, she could be certain that Jiraiya had done the same.

That would have to wait a little bit longer.

She had to give him credit on his approach. Had she been unprepared for him sneaking up on her the way that he had done the first time when he'd introduced himself, she would have been overtaken. However she was not going to allow him to do such a thing twice.

The snow exploded and a large pink creature Jiraiya's size emerged. It had a pale-yellow muzzle, a scaled belly, a large tail covered by a huge spiral-shaped shell that caused it to stand on its hind legs. Its face was stuck in a permanently dopey expression, belying just how dangerous it really was in this particular situation.

It attacked with a blast of fire at seemingly nothing, only for Jiraiya to shimmer into view from nothingness in order to dodge. He had turned himself transparent, which in a blizzard left him all but unseen. Clever man. He just seemed to impress more and more. It was a shame he was dying.

"Calm Mind," Lorelei stated, as Jiraiya's cover was blown, "There was no way you could have approached without Slowbro picking up on it."

"Slowbro, huh?" Jiraiya said, shaking the frostbite out of his exposed fingertips. He'd been out in the thick of it for far too long. Even he had his limits and he'd been trekking about in frigid conditions for hours before the fight had even begun, "I've seen a Slowpoke before, but not that one I'll admit."

"It's amazing what can happen when a Shellder bites onto a Slowpoke," Lorelei said with a small smile, "Pokémon truly are amazing, but I'm certain you're aware of that. After all, I doubt a man like you figured his end would come in ninety seconds from a simple song."

Ninety seconds. If it came to a fight, she had the resources to last that long, at least. Yes, Jiraiya was unnaturally powerful, but even so, she herself was far from helpless.

He wasn't planning on letting the time run down that close if he could help it though, but on the other hand, Lorelei wasn't going to let him get close, "Mega Punch!"

"Hari Jizou (Needle Jizou)!" Jiraiya's hair surrounded his body just as Slowbro threw the crushing blow, causing its fist to be impaled on a silver wall of metal spines that kept Jiraiya's body protected, "Sorry big guy, but I can't drop dead just yet. Hari Jigoku (Needle Hell)!"

Slowbro's front was blasted with needles, but all it let out was a dullard cry acknowledging that it had been attacked, not that it was actually in anguish.

"Hurting it isn't going to do anything unless you attack with a move that will actually stop it," Lorelei said, "Slowpoke can't feel any pain."

"Apparently, you can't either."

Hearing Jiraiya's voice behind her made Lorelei's blood run cold. It couldn't be. But lo and behold, she turned to see Jiraiya standing there, his hair extended and dangerous, just like the other one that her Slowbro had been engaging. Her mouth moved to ask how, but she found that she couldn't make the words. She felt numb, and it wasn't because of the cold.

There was a warmth spreading along her body starting from her torso, and it wasn't from her choice of clothing. Looking down, she saw dozens of needles, neatly grouped, all in one particular area around her liver. Fantastic aim for what looked like such an unwieldy technique.

The other Jiraiya that had been dealing with her Slowbro popped and vanished in a puff of smoke, as if it had never existed at all. Fooled by a copy. All the bells and whistles kept her attention long enough for him to get to her directly.

Once Lorelei knew that she had been gravely wounded, her body immediately gave out on her and she fell to the ground, "Well done," She said with a breathless laugh, "How ruthless of you."

"I don't care if you chose this battlefield or not," Jiraiya said, standing over the fallen woman without an ounce of mercy on his face. It was shame, but what was done was done. She had come forward with lethal force and he had responded in kind, "There isn't a terrain on this planet that I haven't fought on at least once. You could never have hidden from me."

Lorelei reached at her wounds and pulled out the needle-like hair follicles that had been impaled deep within her body. She had begun bleeding immediately after being struck, internally. The quick spread of the red stain on her clothes left no question that he had gotten her good, "Be that as it may, you're still going to die."

"Maybe, but you won't be around to make sure, will you?" Jiraiya said before holding up four fingers and turning them upside down, "Looks like the Elite Four is going to be down one for the foreseeable future."

"Looks like it," Lorelei said, laying her head down in the snow, "You know... you really are quite handsome. A shame... you didn't join. Could have had some fun..."

The red of her blood spread out from her body and over through the pure white of the blizzard's snow surrounding her. She didn't move again. Jiraiya kept his eye on her the entire time before shaking his head. What a waste of talent and beauty, "Maybe so. Doesn't matter now though."

And it didn't. But just because she was dead didn't mean he was out of the woods in the slightest. This was just something he had to do for pride and for the sake of tying up loose ends. This wasn't ending the Perish Song's curse.

Jiraiya's count in his head was winding down to the last few seconds when he felt himself simply shut down. Lorelei was out of commission, but that didn't change anything. He'd been the one to approach her outright.

He'd been trying to get information on what was happening, who Lance was, what his aims happened to be, and for that he had been willing to expose himself to a direct battle he was certain he could win.

He had been right. He did win. But apparently these Elite Four types were more than able to plan for their own defeat. It was the Pokémon equivalent of a kinjutsu as far as he could tell. A very effective one that he hadn't the foggiest idea of how to break.

'I can't go out like this. That stupid kid still needs me,' Jiraiya thought to himself with a laugh, 'There's _no way_ he has any idea how to get back to Konoha from here by himself. He's only seen the ship once, and he's got no idea when it makes its rounds to this continent.'

That was bluster meant to try and drive him on to keep fighting to live. He knew that when push came to shove, Naruto would be just fine without him. Sure, Naruto would be angry and stark-raving vengeful, but that Pokémon kunoichi cutie he kept with him would get his head back on straight, and it would only toughen the kid up for the harder aspects of the life for further down the line.

His motor functions were quickly dying off. His thoughts were blanking in and out, and his heartbeat was slowing to a dangerous degree. A goddamn Pokémon murder-suicide technique. Really? What the hell?

"...Stupid continent," Jiraiya muttered before keeling over face-first into the cold, lifeless snow.

Only Lorelei's befuddled Slowbro remained upright, and the least worse for wear for the most part. Other than bleeding from the hair needles Jiraiya's clone had shot it with, it simply walked around aimlessly, unable to feel pain from the wounds. Its trainer was dead and it had no enemy to fight against.

As Jiraiya's body started to be concealed by the snow, the blizzard died down, and a dark hand stuck itself inside of his chest, gripping the with a deep kind of pain that forced him to cry out despite his state of unconsciousness. Just as quickly as it reached in, the hand removed itself, taking with it a black energy taint that had been festering inside of his body.

He began to breathe again. His heart started to pump his blood.

He was saved.

Standing over him, an old woman in a shawl clicked her tongue pathetically at the sight of both Jiraiya and the now deceased Lorelei, her cane stabbing a hole into the deep snow that she'd shuffled through to reach the grizzled shinobi.

A Haunter drifted around her, holding onto the black curse of the Perish Song that had previously inhabited Jiraiya's body, cackling before eating it whole as though it were a delicacy.

The old woman kneeled down and put a hand on Jiraiya's face, "Well, well. Not just anyone could do something like that to dear Lorelei. Lance would have been livid with the loss of his ice master… normally. However I believe I can even his temper out if I present him with you as a replacement."

It was a severe blow that Jiraiya had dealt them. Lorelei been truly powerful, more powerful than Jiraiya had given her the chance to show. She was simply too cautious and thought too hard about her moves. She'd made too many plans involving avoiding a direct conflict, instead of preparing to deal with one. Against a hard-charging foe like Jiraiya, she had overthought herself into making enough mistakes for him to make short work of her when she really could have put up a better fight.

But what could be said about Jiraiya that hadn't been touched upon already?

Even if Lorelei hadn't been using her true battle team, Jiraiya had gone clear through her without even using a single Pokémon for support. He'd done it with a time limit attached to his very lifespan, and he hadn't flinched in the face of his own pending demise.

She reached down and undid his 'Oil' headband before laughing to herself. Yes, from what she'd heard from Lance's own mouth, this man was worth at least two of the rest of the Elite Four by himself. All she had to do was enact the same… measures, she had done for Bruno to ensure his cooperation.

The old woman's crooked-sounding laugh echoed out along the now quiet Mt. Silver.

XxX

(Ecruteak City – Pokémon Center)

After the battle had ended, the first order of business had been to see to Jasmine's Steelix that had been inflicted with paralysis. Fortunately, the Pokémon Center hadn't been damaged during the course of the attack. Bruno and his small army of trained Machop hadn't managed to make it far enough to the center of the city to wreak much havoc there.

Either way, it was over now, and while the citizens attended to the cleanup and the questions as to why this had even happened in the first place, it was just as good a time as any for the ninja contingent to report in to the supervisor of Kanto's Pokémon Gyms.

Apparently news moved quickly, even between regions, because when Naruto dialed her up on his Poké Gear to give her their progress, Erika was none too pleased.

"_What did you do?"_

She sounded perfectly calm, but behind that even temper there was more than likely a quiet sort of fury that Naruto wouldn't have expected from her. This was a thought, because Janine seemed to be flinching away from the call, despite the fact that it was coming from a device on Naruto's arm.

"…Alright, but you can't be mad at us," Naruto said, trying to do his best right off the bat to run damage control. Her eerily cool response did nothing to make him think it was working.

"_What did you do?"_

"First of all," Naruto started to say before looking to Janine who gestured for him to go on with his explanation, as half-assed as she knew it would be. Better him than her though. Erika already knew when she was full of crap, "We were minding our own business."

Wrong way to start.

"_Lying to me isn't a wise course of action, even an entire region apart, I assure you."_

"We _were_!"

"_And just how did a battle that destroyed one-sixth of Ecruteak City break out whilst you were 'minding your own business'?"_

And they didn't know how to answer that, because they had no idea from the beginning why it had even been happening, other than Bruno's eco-terrorist b.s. about humans, and Pokémon, and ruining the world, and granola-junk, and blah-blah-blah that they'd forgotten about after the gigantic fight to the death had begun.

Looking to salvage the situation, Janine grabbed Naruto's wrist to speak into the Poké Gear herself, "Well, on the bright side, at least it wasn't a fight with a Gym Leader," As if that was somehow supposed to make things better for her old friend, "We actually fought alongside one of them! Against the Elite Four! And won! That has to count for something, right?"

Silence reigned over the line for several seconds and for a moment Naruto wondered if the call had been dropped. Eventually though, Erika let out a sigh as if she were fighting off the biggest migraine of her young life, _"Alright, since you were joined by a Gym Leader, and since I'm quite certain any record of an attack will be verified by Morty himself, I'll take your word for it. But really, the Elite Four?"_

Not that she didn't have confidence in the strength of the Gym Leaders, but there was a good reason that the Elite Four were seen as a significant notch beyond. All the news had been able to cover was that a battle had been going on, a series of earthquakes had rocked the city and that fighting Pokémon were attacking.

The fact that she had gotten a call from Naruto, in Ecruteak City, while there was news coverage transpiring in that very same place, threw up a gigantic red flag that past experiences with him simply wouldn't allow her to ignore or sweep under the rug without dealing with first. Honestly, supposedly being in charge, when the group you were supposed to be in charge of included the peskiest people on the continent, was for the birds.

And she hadn't been completely wrong either. Naruto and Janine had been involved in what had happened. They just weren't the ones responsible for causing the trouble in the first place.

"Cross my heart," Janine said in confirmation, "Just one of those guys took three of us to handle. We were fighting in the city, so Babyface and Jasmine couldn't use their bigger attacks, and we had to keep Bruno from using any himself. He made a real mess."

"_Very well. Please remember, I'm counting on the two of you," _And for everything she'd thought beforehand, she still did actually. They were her friends (one was her very best friend), and neither of them had let her down before, _"Just stay safe, and try not to cause too much trouble."_

It might have been beating a dead horse to say that every time she spoke to either of them, but maybe if she said it enough and they heard it enough, the request would take hold. Still, they hadn't even been set loose for a month and all of this had transpired in the meantime. That kind of magnetism for trouble was uncanny. Wherever Naruto was from had to be loving the time off from craziness that they were getting in his absence, because it had to be him. Not much happened before he'd ambled into their lands.

"_I'll try and look into what's happened. Perhaps some light can be shed on today's events, though I doubt any source within Johto that could actually help would do so. This is their affair after all,"_ Erika said, her voice taking on a thoughtful tone, _"Hm. Well, please contact me again soon."_

"Will do," Naruto said before hitting the button on his Poké Gear to end the call. The conversation done, Naruto sank back into a chair in the waiting room of the Pokémon Center next to Janine. His clothes had been changed and he was all cleaned up, "So, what now?"

Janine slumped down in the long chair, leaning her body on most of the cushion with a fatigued grunt. She was a bit tired, but they all were. She wouldn't have been surprised if Jasmine had fallen asleep while waiting on her Steelix to be healed. It would probably be for the best if it took a while, because they could all use the rest.

"Mmm, we were supposed to get to the Day Care Center in Goldenrod City today so Jasmine could get this back to her Pokémon in time for it to hatch," Janine said, rubbing the Pokémon Egg incubator she'd been carrying since they'd gotten it from Mr. Pokémon. Every so often it shook enough that it could actually be seen moving, "But, I guess if we move out early tomorrow we can get there in time. I don't think this guy is gonna stay in there for much longer."

"Is this really alright though?"

"Is what alright Babyface?"

"This," Naruto said, gesturing to the area around them, "After all of the stuff that happened today," He started listing things off on his fingers, "The fight, the Unown, and running into those three big-ass cat-monster-whatever things under the Burned Tower?"

Janine rolled over from her side onto her back, the incubator held tightly to her chest as she stared at the ceiling, "Well, there isn't much else we _can_ do right now. This isn't like the Team Rocket thing, where we knew where to run to and who to deal with. They were Gym Leaders. That was easy. This? Not so much," She said, her eyes moving over to where Naruto was sitting next to her, "I know your first idea is to punch your problems in the face, heh, and I kinda like the idea of that approach, but sometimes you've gotta wait."

"Wait for the bad shit to start happening again?" It had been the same song-and-dance in his life since the chunin exams and the miniature war that had broken out during the final rounds. He, or something he cared about would get hit, and the only thing his side could do in return would be to wait and try to counter and trap the other side when it happened again.

"Hey," Janine said, reaching up with one hand to touch Naruto's cheek and turn his face toward her, "Come on hero. Just trust me, would you?"

Naruto scoffed at the hero remark, but reacted to the familiar gesture, holding onto her wrist and keeping her hand there as she ran her fingers over his whisker-marks. It was comfortable after a day of trial. The two of them could have stayed just like that for the rest of the night.

Things like that, they made Naruto think about whether there was actually something real there, between them. Maybe? It would have been nice. Better than that even, to think about actually having a real-life girlfriend, and someone that he actually liked.

For her to have a boyfriend that understood who she was, and accepted that. A person she could share her lifestyle with. Janine thought about it and realized that he already knew a good number of her own personal secrets, and it felt good to know that he did, because betrayal from him wasn't even possible.

Then reality set in for the two of them, the way it tended to lately whenever either of them thought about the subject, and it made the warmth of her hand and the warmth of his face turn cold to the other.

It could never work. Even if they did start something, and there was some substance to it, an entire ocean would wind up separating them. They both had things to do. Things of grave importance that they needed to be at their homes for. In the end, it all boiled down to one important thing.

'She can't go with me, and I can't stay with her.'

"He can't stay with me, and I can't go with him.'

Janine softly removed her wrist from Naruto's grasp, away from his face, and just like that the moment was over, "So," She tried to save some semblance of face by bringing back up that they had been having an actual conversation before things had gotten all mushy, "You were saying; yeah what were those cat-monster things?"

She wasn't much for Johto's lore, but Jasmine had been saying something about what they had been to Ecruteak City's past history. She had noted that the kind girl had never used any names to describe them.

"Three unnamed Pokémon that had vanished in the fire that burned that tower up..." Naruto said to himself, paraphrasing what he could recall of Jasmine's recollection, "Those things were stupid powerful. From how they took off, they might be faster than Ranbouen."

Janine nodded before a teasing smirk crossed her lips, "Wanna catch one?"

"Maybe," Naruto replied, grinning stupidly at the thought, "I kinda want to catch 'em all though."

The back and forth banter died out when the two of them felt the eyes of someone on them. The center wasn't exactly crowded, but there were still enough people there that one could try and hide that they were eavesdropping.

This person attempted to do no such thing.

Staring right at them from a table around twenty feet away was a man with slicked-back brown hair, wearing the dandiest purple suit that Naruto had ever seen in his life, complete with red bowtie and white cape.

Upon realizing that they had noticed him, he stood up and marched right over to the pair. The purpose he had in every step he took was enough for Janine to sit up and prepare to react, even as Naruto tensed for some sort of conflict.

Whether he simply couldn't sense the atmosphere or didn't care, the man stopped in front of them, well within arm's reach, pointing at Naruto and Janine accusatorily, "Suicune, Raikou, and Entei."

Naruto went wide-eyed in confusion and pointed at himself in return, "Uh, no. Naruto and Janine."

"Those three creatures you speak of," The man specified, "Those are their names."

Naruto and Janine looked at each other before Janine shrugged her shoulders and spoke up, "The ones from the legend? Jasmine said they were nameless."

The man shook his head and took a step back, "I've been searching for Suicune for a very long time, searching everywhere for clues, studying every bit of material I could get my hands on, just to get a single glimpse of it. And you're telling me you've seen it?"

"I wasn't telling you anything, but yeah," Naruto said, sitting cross-legged on the chair, his arms folded over his chest, "All three of 'em," He added as an extra jab.

In the first thirty seconds, he couldn't call himself a fan of this guy. For one thing, it wasn't like he'd planned to run into Suicune, Raikou, and Entei. It just happened that way. Just to see the three damn things he'd had to be (un)fortunate enough to fall down a hole, face off with a few hundred Unown, and almost find himself attacked after Bruno's stupid Earthquake barrages.

After the day he'd had so far, and the recent reminder of his compatibility and lack of future prospects with the girl he'd been nursing a crush on for the better part of a year, he wasn't particularly in the mood to be accommodating to someone with ruffled feathers over something out of his control.

"It was said that Suicune would awaken in the presence of an honest, powerful trainer," Eusine said, sizing Naruto up, from the way he sat to the scowl he was poorly hiding on his face. This was the person that the Legendary Beasts awakened to? He was a young man of fifteen, if even that, "But you?" He said quietly to himself.

To have searched for one single thing for ten years of his life, never to get a glimpse, only for someone else to stumble into it out of the blue. That bit deeply.

He didn't get why it wound up being him, but at that point he'd realized that he'd come off as quite confrontational if the reactions from the two across from him were anything to go off of. In an attempt to assuage the jumpy youngsters, he stepped back, hands up defensively.

"My apologies," He said before extending his hand, "It was rude of me to say those things without introducing myself first. My name is Eusine. I've already caught your names in passing, Naruto and Janine, correct?" He asked, remembering from earlier in the conversation.

Taken aback, Naruto really couldn't think of anything else to do other than take the offered olive branch and shake the man's white-gloved hand, "Err… yeah."

"There may be more than meets the eye with you," Eusine said, forming a second opinion after cooling down. He'd have to talk to Morty about this before he left. He was interested in the legends of Johto as well, as a spiritually aware man himself, "As for me, I'm setting out to track try and track Suicune. Perhaps we'll meet again! Farewell!"

And with those words of departure, and a flourish of his cape, Eusine was gone, out into the night of Ecruteak City for whatever aims drove a man such as that.

It had been an all-around awkward experience for Naruto and Janine, who still didn't know what to make of the guy? Was he cool? Was he nice? Were one of them going to have to gut him somewhere down the line? Naruto basically summed it all up when he turned to Janine, no shortage of befuddlement on his face.

Mouth wide open, it still took him nearly ten seconds to formulate just what he wanted to say, "…What the hell just-?"

"I don't know Babyface," Janine cut him off, holding her temple to fight off the raging headache that wanted to build. Some days, the fates just liked to pile things on. This was clearly one of those days, "Sometimes you've just got to let it go and move along."

That was banner advice for those who lived absurd lives.

XxX

(Sometime Later – Mt. Silver)

Being the champion of the Pokémon League wasn't really that great.

Sure, you were widely recognized as the best trainer on the face of the planet, second to none in battle, but there was a sort of monotony to it. Red couldn't count the number of trainers just starting out, people that weren't even skilled amongst their circle of friends who thought it was the thing to do to challenge him. And of course if he was challenged he couldn't turn it down.

That led to many time-wasting battles that really did nothing to help him improve. It just wasn't worth it to roam around and continue getting into battles on the side of the road against every person that wanted to take a shot at the ace.

Which was why he'd taken to training in seclusion at Mt. Silver. And honestly, it had been going great. Strong Pokémon, multiple environments to get used to fighting in. It was spectacular.

And then that stupid freak blizzard had hit, and he'd had to fight his way through six ice Pokémon that were using the attack Blizzard to create it. Out of the blue though, it simply stopped. How curious, if not annoying and outright suspicious.

Eventually though, he stumbled across a set of Poké Balls, lying in the snow that had steadily begun to melt after the temperature and weather had returned to normal. There was no person in sight, no bag that they could have potentially been stored in and fallen out of. Nothing.

A Poliwhirl, a Jynx, a Lapras, and an Aerodactyl… and the Aerodactyl was so much better trained that it was ridiculous. As a matter of fact, other than how powerful it was, that was a rare Pokémon in of itself. In fact, he only knew one other person that actually had one.

Eyes going wide in alarm, Red scanned the Poké Ball with his Pokédex to check its ID. It was registered to a trainer already, and he knew who it was, he just had to be sure.

"…Why is Naruto's Aerodactyl all the way out here?" He asked himself, scratching underneath his hat. It was a question he was planning on finding out the answer to soon, just as soon as he could track him down.

Whatever reason the reason was, for now it didn't sit well with him in the slightest.

* * *

><p><strong>Aw hell, when it rains it pours. <strong>

**Bad guys be doing bad guy stuff. Unfortunately for them, Jiraiya is man enough to see your murder-suicide move and raise you an ass-reddening beatdown before he dies... and then, just because he can, he doesn't die anyway. Even if a creepy old lady with ghost Pokémon happens to be the reason why.**

**Hope you enjoyed. Kenchi out.**


	25. Catch Your Breath, Or Lose Your Air

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. I wish I could legally get into sanctioned fights with people I come across in the street just from making eye contact, the way trainers get into Pokémon battles in the games. Also I wish that they were then legally required to give me half of the money they happen to be carrying on their person after I defeat them.

That sounds like a hot way to live. Get on that, state legislation!

**Chapter 25: Catch Your Breath, Or Lose Your Air**

* * *

><p>Janine cracked open the door of her hotel room, making naught a sound as she peered inside to make sure her roommate hadn't woken up while she had been gone or because her return was too noisy.<p>

Waking him up early just because it was how they normally did things was the last thing she wanted to do on this day in particular. Naruto had been burning the candle at both ends. The day after the fighting and destruction in Ecruteak City, Naruto had spent the morning and part of the early afternoon assisting in the cleanup and recovery.

There were still stray Machop to be found around the city terrorizing people, hurting them, and causing damage, all on the orders of Bruno who had commanded them to assault the old settlement in the first place. So many people had been injured. Even if the coordination of the attack had been broken, there was still danger.

A lot of citizens in town had been killed. The volcanic eruption on Cinnabar Island had killed so many more that comparing the two wasn't even conceivable, but when that had happened, Naruto and Janine had been at a distance, watching as it happened from afar. It almost felt like it hadn't been real.

This time, after the fight with Bruno they had to walk through town to reach the Pokémon Center. That had been quite the walk, and they had seen quite a lot. Collapsed buildings with motionless people being carried from the wreckage. People being removed from the streets, their bodies injured beyond relief by a Karate Chop or worse from a Machop.

The thought of what that kind of Pokémon could do to a person, known for having the strength of more than ten men, was terrifying.

It really put into perspective that even though humans could tame Pokémon, they were still creatures with abilities tailored for destruction. They were beings of power, forces of nature, and they lived in a place where humans were _easily_ outnumbered by the creatures that also inhabited the continent. It was a delicate balance, and if it tipped in any way, if something drastic ever truly occurred to antagonize Pokémon, humans there could find themselves wiped out, and it wouldn't take long at all.

As a ninja trained to utilize Pokémon in her arts, no, as a trainer in general, Janine recognized that such power was to be respected. It was a responsibility to deal with and face down when the need arose, and a privilege to control. It wasn't to be exploited the way Team Rocket tried to, and it wasn't something to bow down and praise, the way cultures of the past and a few today still did, deifying certain Pokémon because of their unimaginable strength.

Such a morbid train of thought, but it was one that was quickly set aside. Staying down around Naruto was just too hard to do.

Delicate appearances aside, Jasmine had proven to be true to her type. She had hardened herself for the duration of the trek through the city, throughout the sights of the Elite Four's destruction, her expression remained completely blank, only relenting when she had been sitting in on her Steelix's treatment at the Pokémon Center.

Things had remained rather somber when the previous day had begun in Ecruteak, but by the time the day was over and they were in Goldenrod City, things had perked up a bit.

Perhaps that was why she'd offered to room with Naruto under the guise of saving money. It was played off as her pinching pennies, that they both shared the same quarters, but after the time they'd been having for the last two days, Janine just didn't want to leave him alone. She knew he was a ball of energy, but if he was exhausted there wouldn't have been anyone who could have been able to blame him.

Janine had gone out early to get a feel for Goldenrod City. It was a gorgeous place. The streets were cobbled. The buildings were tall and covered every street, corner to corner. The sight of the Magnet Train's tracks and its station were awe-inspiring. To think that something of that nature spanned the landscape and came to a stop in Saffron City in Kanto.

The Radio Tower, the Department Store, the seascape to the west, it was all so overwhelming, even if one had seen it before elsewhere. There just weren't that many big cities on the Pokémon Continent. At most, there was one in every geographical region.

After getting a bit of a lay of the downtown area, the purple-clad kunoichi returned to the Pokémon Center where she, Jasmine, and Naruto had paid for overnight residence in. Silently moving back into the two-bed room, she smiled softly at the sight of her still slumbering partner on his back, arms and legs askew. It didn't look comfortable at all, but he'd done it to himself.

Slipping out of her sandals she sat down on Naruto's bed, barely disturbing the mattress as she sat against the headboard right next to him, her knees pulled up against her chest. She was certain that she could have slammed the door shut and taken big Donphan steps across the room. Naruto probably wouldn't even have stirred.

She frowned to herself at the thought of how strange it probably was, watching someone while they were sleeping. She then quickly banished the thought on the grounds that she didn't care. Reaching out a hand, Janine ran it through Naruto's hair, allowing herself a moment to zone out after hearing his content sigh. He'd really stretched himself thin over the past two days.

He hadn't worked himself into the ground trying to help because he'd felt responsible for what had happened in Ecruteak City. It was simply that he'd felt it was the right thing to do. Janine had made a show of getting on him for doing so much work for free, but there had been no heat or feeling in it. This was the kind of person Naruto was. It was one of the things about him that made her feel warm to think about.

"You're so sweet," She quietly said to Naruto, knowing that he couldn't hear her, "You've torn me up, you know that? I used to be a real conniving piece of work. Really, my father put years into trying to make me a grade-A bitch," And it had been working, if slowly. She had been well on her way until a disaster of a job in Pewter City, "Then you show up and turn me into jelly. You need to take some responsibility for ruining all of that hard work, Babyface."

Naruto of course, gave no response, instead unconsciously shifting his head closer to her in response to the attention she was giving him.

"You can't just change a girl and then run off. That's not fair," Janine continued, a playful pout in her voice, "You did it once before already, but at least I knew you were still somewhere around. When you leave for good, and go back to that Konoha place…" She didn't want to finish the thought.

She didn't know what she would do, only what she would feel like. Just thinking about it gave her a falling feeling in the pit of her stomach. It made her breaths feel tighter, her muscles feel worthless. If that was how thinking about it made her feel, watching him sail off for good would cripple her.

Janine took a deep breath and slid down in the bed next to Naruto, laying on her side with her forehead pressed to his shoulder, "I'm selfish," She said bluntly, "I see things I want, and I find a way to get them. But I've only wanted one other thing as much as you, to be a Gym Leader, and I can't think of a way to have you and keep it too."

It might have been just a stupid kid's crush. An attraction based on her inexperience. But it didn't feel like it. If it had been, why did it pick at her heart every time she thought of him in the Safari Zone? Why did it feel like her heart might jump out of her chest and leave her to go after him if she saw him leaving the continent for good?

She leaned over and pressed her lips to Naruto's cheek without a moment's hesitation, letting them linger for as long as she reasonably could. She pulled back just enough that her nose and lips were still brushing against his face. Yes, she wished she could do something like that while they were both awake, but she could only be brave about it when there wasn't a risk of consequences.

Sitting back up, Janine noticed that the door was cracked, which wasn't how she had left it. On the other side she saw the soft, brown eyes of Olivine City's Gym Leader looking in on them.

Upon spotting Jasmine smiling at her from the door, Janine felt mortified. Thank goodness she had been fully dressed and had gone out before this. If she'd done this when she'd first woken up instead and Jasmine had seen it then, what misunderstanding might have transpired?

"Babyface, wake up," Janine said, shaking him as she got up from his bed. Even doing that, it still took him fifteen seconds to fully rouse, "Come on."

She almost laughed at the squinty look on his face as he fought between trying to look at her and shut his eyes to go back to sleep, "Huhn? Wha?"

"It's after eight," Janine told him, "You might want to get up if you want to get a start on anything today. Goldenrod City is a big place."

That was right. They had things to do. A lot of them actually. That meant no more time for sawing logs, "Oh, okay. Thanks," Naruto noticed that she was fully dressed already and put two-and-two together, "Hey, why didn't you wake me up when you got up?" He seemed almost put out that she'd gone out without him.

"Well... you were snoring so loud-."

"Maaaaa..." Naruto interrupted with a groan, kicking his feet over the side of the bed to get up and head to the bathroom amid Janine's giggles.

When the door closed, the young kunoichi stopped and sighed, heading outside of the room to where she found Jasmine leaning against the wall, still smiling. At least she had the good grace to keep whatever this would wind up being between them instead of dropping a dime to Naruto.

Knowing she was busted, Janine didn't even have any machinations on hiding the truth. Not from Jasmine anyway, as that wouldn't affect any semblance of her relationship with her primary companion, "Well then?"

"You care about him," Jasmine stated. She didn't even bother asking or playing around with it, "That was a little more than friendly."

"You're right," Janine admitted with a shrug of her purple-clad shoulders, "I'm pretty sure I'm in love with him actually."

Honestly, Jasmine hadn't expected it to be that easy to get Janine's admission of affection. All she'd had to do was bring it up.

"Well that explains why you didn't seem to like me much at first," Jasmine said. It hadn't been difficult to discern. Janine had tried to hide it and set it aside, but while riding on Naruto's Arcanine from Olivine to Ecruteak she could feel the negative vibes clearer than at any other time, "Until now I'd been thinking that it was more likely that it was because I'm a Gym Leader from Johto."

Being reminded of her original attitude to the well-meaning Gym Leader just a few days earlier drew a flinch out of Janine, "I know, I'm sorry, it's just…" She didn't really have an excuse for feeling jealous about someone who she didn't have any claim over, especially in regards to someone they had just met. If anything, _that_ was what embarrassed her, "Ugh. Do you think Babyface would ask too many questions if I ran away back to Fuchsia City?"

"You want to run away from him?"

"I feel like it sometimes. Like right now? Just now, in the room? Yeah!" Janine exclaimed before sighing and calming down, leaning against the wall of the hallway. Every time she shut her eyes and thought about it, "It's a bad idea, getting together. Not if it wound up being nothing in the end, but it doesn't feel like it is. Eventually, he's going to leave, to somewhere I can't go. Then what?"

Jasmine reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, quite a stark departure for what one would think of a trainer of a cold, harsh kind of Pokémon such as the steel-type. "Thinking that way shouldn't stop you from doing something that you know would make both of you happy now." She said with a reassuring smile.

Janine rolled her eyes, but the idea did make her smile, that she was someone who could make Naruto happy, "Are you kidding? If he went home he'd probably have tons of girls who've known him longer who could make him happier."

Sure, Naruto had some traits that were annoying, but if he was able to worm his way into her heart somehow, someone else in the village he actually lived in had to have had something for him. It would have made absolutely no sense for no one else to see something special there.

Jasmine shook her head, "That shouldn't make a difference here. He's very fond of you too. I can see it from the way you treat each other."

The kunoichi of the group opened her mouth to say something else but instead of words, a chuckle came first, "I'm spilling my guts to you instead of the person I'm actually having fits about," Jasmine couldn't help that she was an empathetic person by nature though, "You've got to stop being so understanding and helpful."

Jasmine just shrugged and smiled enigmatically, "I like supporting people."

XxX

(Ecruteak City)

The work for the most influential person in a town that had just recently come under attack was never done.

Even as he took a break from overseeing the recovery efforts of Ecruteak City, Morty, the Gym Leader of that particular place was spending his time off checking on a recently disturbed site of legend at the behest of one of his friends.

Morty was a pale man with shoulder-length blonde hair. He wore a black long-sleeved shirt with purple cuffs, cream-colored pants, a wide, purple headband, and a purple, short, tattered cape with red fire lining the bottom.

An expert in the use of ghost-type Pokémon, Morty's talents were more based around the spiritual than the physical. But even for someone who spent as much time around the morbid sorts of Pokémon that he did, the amount of funerals and ceremonies of passing that he'd had to oversee over the last two days would have been enough to drain even the most hardened, dulled soul.

Even without that, he had to see to the progress of the city's reconstruction in its most important places. He had to send a measure of gratitude to Uzumaki Naruto and his odd replication powers. Without him, it would have been at least a week before they could have even started in earnest. Now they were ahead of schedule.

At the moment, he was underneath the Burned Tower, checking on the very site where Johto's Legendary Beasts apparently reanimated themselves and awakened. Raikou, Entei, and Suicune had come and gone, and were now racing around the region nonstop. It was a sign of great change set to occur.

Morty could still feel the energy permeating every section of the hollowed out cavern underneath the ruined structure, "The power radiating through this place is incredible," The hair on the back of his neck stood up in its presence, "...They're not even here. Who in the world could even stand in front of the power all three must have been putting out at once?"

He wasn't alone, as he was studying the scene alongside a most interested party. Namely, the expert of Johto's legendary mysticism, Eusine.

"I don't understand how Suicune could show himself to a boy who didn't even know what it was," Eusine had dedicated himself to the traditional knowledge of Johto's history, worked his entire life to find Suicune, and someone who was the epitome of 'out of town' happened to be the one to get all three Legendary Beasts to show themselves, "It's supposed to appear before trainers that it feels are worthy."

That worth wasn't just being powerful as far as Eusine was concerned, something he would never make the mistake of saying that Naruto wasn't. To him it was also having a powerful respect for the creatures, of which he had. Suicune more than any of them, but he held a healthy reverence for all of the Pokémon of lore.

"That kid that beat every Gym Leader in Kanto," By now after finding out from Falkner that the person traveling with Janine, the Fuchsia City Gym Leader, was the stand-in for the vacant Vermillion City position, it had been almost nothing to figure out just who this Naruto person was, "And fought a member of the Elite Four into retreat not too long ago."

"It was with help," Eusine pointed out, "He had Jasmine from Olivine City, and another Kanto Gym Leader with him."

Morty smirked for a moment at his friend trying to downplay the Naruto boy's strength. Someone was a little jealous, "It doesn't matter. Even with those odds, I would still hesitate to step into a battle like that."

Taming and training Pokémon at that level was unheard of. And every last one of the Elite Four had something about them that put them beyond regular human beings as well. Even Morty, with all that he could do with ghost Pokémon and his own training in the mystic arts of Ecruteak City's monks, would still be little match for Agatha, the true ghost Pokémon master of the Elite Four.

Much like Eusine, Morty followed the stories of legendary Pokémon very closely and had gone to great lengths to strengthen himself physically and spiritually to somehow get closer to them.

He believed the stories. His favorite was of the rainbow-colored Pokémon, the embodiment of resurrection in Johto, that would only appear before a truly powerful trainer. It was why he drove himself to become Ecruteak's Gym Leader in the first place, to prove his worth so that he might one day see it.

As he walked through the cave underneath the Burned Tower, all of a sudden Morty stopped, as the feeling of energy rushing into his body caused a wave of images to go through his head. They were so sudden, they passed so quickly, he hardly had time to comprehend what he had seen in the first instant that he had gotten them.

They startled and overwhelmed him to such a degree that he fell to his knees, shaking uncontrollably. Eusine heard the sound of him falling to the ground and saw his friend, one of the most powerful people he knew, brought down. The mystic rushed to the side of Ecruteak City's greatest medium, trying to rouse him and ensure his well-being.

"What?" Eusine asked his nearly catatonic friend, "Morty! What happened?"

Eusine's shouts snapped Morty out of his trance, prompting the young man to shake his head to clear the fuzziness. He had just had a vision. He'd had enough of them to know what they played out as in his head and how he felt after they were over.

But they had never been so intense before. So real. God, he felt as though that had been reality instead of what he was living right then. And oh, the things he had seen. He could never make anyone else who heard him understand.

"I saw it," Morty said, a smile growing on his face and a tear coming to his eye, "The rainbow-colored one. I saw the shadow of the person who would make that Pokémon appear."

"You… you can't be serious," Eusine said, clearly in disbelief, slowly giving way to excitement, "It's going to happen?"

"Soon. I know it," The person who called it down simply radiated strength, but for whatever reason Morty could make out none of their features. It was maddening. Was it him? Was it someone else who would make it happen? "I don't know who's going to do it, but it's going to happen at the Tin Tower."

He had seen it. And so much more. Some of the things he had seen, he had no explanation for, nor an understanding of.

XxX

(Goldenrod City – Goldenrod Tunnel – Restricted Area – Underground Warehouse)

Johto's Team Rocket seemed to be very good at poaching and stealing the weaker breeds of Pokémon, such as Rattata, Pidgey, Spearow, Hoothoot... things any trainer could find walking around without even having to leave the smaller villages and settlements. But there were more than a few with quite a lot of potential behind them.

This was an advantage that their lower-level members held over that of Kanto's, that they could see it.

A Sandshrew could evolve into a particularly deadly fighter if you reared its killer instinct just right.

Even without evolving a Geodude, if it wasn't very strong it could make a rather effective suicide bomber with Selfdestruct or Explode. If you managed to get it up to a Graveler or a Golem, its strength was so much greater, along with the amount of force you could generate ordering it to blow itself up. It was an effective way to take out an entire city block if need be.

No, Team Rocket didn't have anything particularly mind-blowing in captivity, at least within their Goldenrod City base of operations, but that didn't mean that they didn't have things that could have been devastating with the proper application and the right training.

"Take your pick," Carl said as he walked with Silver, looking through the stores of pilfered Pokémon they had abducted for their own aims, "If there's a kind of Pokémon you would like, just tell us, and we'll make sure you get whatever you want. All you have to do is choose. Do you want a poison-type? Or would you rather try your hand at training psychics? Fire-types? Ice-types perhaps?"

"I don't care," Silver said. Anything would do. He didn't specialize, and he could use any Pokémon he would wind up getting his hands on. He'd gotten that much natural ability from his father and the know-how beaten into him by the masked man who had kidnapped him in his youth, "I just want Pokémon that are strong."

That was the only thing that mattered.

He needed Pokémon strong enough to crush his enemies. Strong enough to protect him from anyone wishing to victimize him ever again. Strong enough to make him the most powerful trainer. Strong enough to kill Uzumaki Naruto.

Silver stopped when he came across a caged Teddiursa. A small little brown bear Pokémon with a large crescent moon marking on its forehead. It looked positively adorable, and it was. It wouldn't be when it evolved though, not in the least, which was what mattered.

Staring for several long seconds he finally broke eye contact with the cute, unassuming little creature, "That one. Give me that one," And with that, he departed. He had a lot of work to do, hard work.

Carl grinned as Silver strode past the Team Rocket grunts moving crates around the underground basement. They had heard of how he had brutally killed every member he had come across at the Slowpoke Well. They acted tough in groups normally, but with this person, he had already shown that their numbers didn't really matter. Not at the level above them that he stood at.

They were afraid of him. Power inspired fear, and with Team Rocket fear itself was power, which put him in a very good position right off the bat.

"If he didn't hate them so much, and if he didn't hate Mask of Ice as well, handing Team Rocket over to him wouldn't be such a bad idea," If Carl figured to go by birthrights, it was technically Silver's since his father had been the leader before the group had fragmented into Johto and Kanto branches. But the young man absolutely abhorred Team Rocket, and the idea of taking over the reins of Giovanni's old organization.

Nearby, Karen shook her head, sitting on one of the many stacked supply crates in the basement as Carl walked off after Silver, "Tsk. Carl didn't just kill him off?" She asked Will, who stood nearby, leaning against the wall, "I know Silver used to be one of Mask of Ice's favorites before he and Green ran away, but he did disrupt a lucrative operation we had in Azalea Town."

Those Slowpoke Tails had been good money to fund their more costly projects. Stupid people all over the place would spend money on things that they thought were exotic and rare.

"Lucrative, but largely worthless," Will said, smiling behind his half-mask, "On the other hand, this works for us in regards to getting closer to Mask of Ice's goal. So Silver wants to kill Uzumaki? That's fine. That will just make it much easier to get the Master Ball."

"Mmm..." Karen said, smirking thoughtfully as she took in just how they could turn Silver's attitude into a weapon for their benefit, "Even if he can't do it at all, if he can get together enough firepower to make it a fight, he can sidetrack the stronger one long enough for someone else to get to the ninja girl and get the ball from her."

Of this, Will had absolutely no doubts or concerns in the slightest. "He will get the firepower, and he'll get it quickly. Did you see his Totodile? The one he stole from the lab in New Bark Town?"

His statement temporarily confounded Karen, "He didn't have a Totodile on him," They had taken note of what Pokémon Silver had carried with him when he had, and a Totodile hadn't been amongst them, "He had a Croco-... oh," The implication sank in within seconds.

"Exactly," Will said with a knowing grin on his face. Silver had only been in possession of the ill-gotten Totodile for a little under a month and it had evolved to its next form, "We give him what he wants, and just enough time to prepare that he knows how to use the Pokémon we give him," Will said, "When he's ready, we turn him loose. It's as simple as that. If he finds them and wins, he wins. If he doesn't, he doesn't. That won't be our concern."

"And what about the Elite Four and the mess they're making? Is that a concern?"

"Whatever the Elite Four are doing, it has nothing to do with us."

"They want the Legendary Pokémon, or one in particular."

"As long as it's not the one Mask of Ice wants, it doesn't matter."

"It _does_ matter," Karen asserted firmly, jumping off of the crates to address Will as directly as she could, "They can brute force whatever they want. Take down whole cities if they felt like it. What if they hadn't attacked Ecruteak City? What if they attacked Mahogany Town instead Or Goldenrod? Then they would have ruined everything."

"Haha... true enough, but there's nothing in Mahogany Town worth attacking as far as they're concerned," Will reasoned airily with a shrug, "Besides, if Bruno had done something that foolish, I'm fairly certain Mask of Ice would have taken it upon himself to dispose of him alone. I think we're safe on that front."

True enough. Their leader was a cruel, cruel man. The only thing that mattered to him, the only thing that garnered his focus, the reason he had surrounded himself with trainers like Will, Karen, and Carl, used them to take over Johto's branch of Team Rocket, were his own goals. Nothing else mattered to him. If you weren't a concern to them, it didn't matter, but if you were an obstacle you would be destroyed without a second thought.

He was as cold as his namesake.

XxX

(Goldenrod City – Goldenrod Radio Tower)

When Janine told Naruto to wake up so they could get to their affairs within Goldenrod City, he hadn't expected that he would wind up doing something so... public.

Sitting in the main lobby on the first floor of the Goldenrod Radio Tower, both Naruto and Janine were quite uncomfortable as they waited to be called up. Jasmine had split off from them temporarily to take the Pokémon Egg Janine had been carrying to her Pokémon that had birthed it at the Day Care Center. She would contact them if it started to hatch while they were away, as Janine still wanted to see a baby Pokémon be born.

Until then, they had work to do. Work that had been assigned to them by the Gym Leader Representative for Kanto.

"_If you could do your part for the sake of the tournament's promotion, I would be extremely grateful," _Erika said over the line connecting her to Naruto and Janine via Naruto's Poké Gear, _"I've already made the arrangements, since I learned of your progression through the region. They would be expecting you in time for the noon show."_

"Erika," Janine said, visibly fidgeting in her seat at the thought of what she had been asked to do, "I'm not comfortable with this."

On the small screen that the device allocated for video calls, Erika visibly raised a delicate eyebrow at her normally outgoing, spirited friend, _"And just what would the problem be?"_

"Going on the radio... all of those people listening to me?" Janine shivered a tad just at the thought of it, "What if I say something dumb?"

An amused smile flitted across Erika's face before she could cover it with her hand like a proper lady, _"'Nina, I'm fairly certain that as long as you go first, anything foolish you might say would be eclipsed once Naruto begins speaking."_

Naruto squinted into the small screen on his Poké Gear, making sure the grass princess could see his displeasure, "I'm gonna hang up if you keep being mean to me," He threatened.

"_Alright, I apologize. That was uncalled for," _Erika said, knowing that Naruto could be belligerent enough to do just that and walk out of the radio tower in retaliation, _"But Janine, you realize that the Gym Leader Tournament will be held in front of a crowd, don't you? A large crowd that you will actually see while you're battling. On the radio the only people there will be you and the host, even if a large amount of people can hear you. It won't be so bad."_

"Come on," Naruto said, giving Janine a nudge of encouragement, "It's not like we're gonna be here all day. Just like, thirty minutes or something, right?" He asked Erika, who nodded.

"_Not even that, really,"_ She said informatively, _"You're going to be guests for a segment of the show, so maybe ten to fifteen minutes at most."_

Erika was Janine's best friend. She had always supported her, believed there was something good inside of her even when she had been slowly rotting from Koga's influence, even over a distance. Still, even with all of that, Erika's gentle encouragement couldn't make her believe in herself when she had convinced herself that all she could do was what she had been taught to do, the way she had been taught to do it.

After all, she was poison, and nothing good came from poison-types. If that were the case, she would just do what she knew best, and be no good.

Naruto was the one that made her understand that there was good in her. That she could do things the right way and that doing so could feel good. He made her believe that she was better than she thought she could have been, that she wasn't weak because she questioned the way she had been brought up. And if her confidence ever faltered, he had more than enough for the both of them and then some. Whether she thought she was capable of something was irrelevant. It didn't matter, because _Naruto_ could make her believe, just like he could make himself believe, that she was capable of anything.

"See? You can bullshit for ten or fifteen minutes, easy," Naruto said to Janine with a reassuring grin, "And I'll be there too, so if you don't have anything to say about something, don't worry. I always have something to say about everything!"

Once again, whether Naruto was really that confident or if he was feigning it for Janine's benefit, he had managed to give her a confidence boost, "Well, you do have a mouth made for radio."

XxX

(Kanto – Pallet Town – Professor Oak's Laboratory)

Professor Oak saw the shadow of a massive flying creature in the sky before it ever came close to landing, prompting him to walk outside just as Red landed, dismounting his Aerodactly and returning it to its Poké Ball. With a smile, Oak greeted one of his most successful charges, "Red. What brings you back to Pallet Town?" The last he had heard, Red had been training inside the caves of Mt. Silver until the next Pokémon League became available.

The expression on the Champion's face was difficult to discern at first, at least until he began to speak, "Professor, is Naruto in some kind of trouble?"

Oak's large eyebrows rose on his face in surprise, "Not that I know of. Why would you ask me that?"

Red pulled out his Poké Ball containing his own Aerodactyl, and then a different one containing another; Naruto's, "I found his Aerodactyl, and he wasn't anywhere around. I checked everywhere."

It was more serious than the powerful trainer thought, as Professor Oak's countenance grew gravely serious, "...Red," He said, his voice level and reserved, demanding nothing but the most straightforward facts Red could present to him, "...This is very important. Where did you find Naruto's Aerodactyl?"

"On Mt. Silver," Red told him, concern beginning to swell up inside of him, "I found more than just that though. I found a Lapras, a Jynx, and a Poliwhirl. But none of those really seem to be Naruto's style," ..Come to think of it, did Naruto even have a style? He just seemed to use what he thought worked for him. Red could definitely respect that.

Oak wasn't thinking anything along those lines though.

With a sigh, Professor Oak beckoned Red inside, walking through the lab as he explained what he knew of the situation.

"Those other Pokémon belong to an acquaintance of mine. Naruto's benefactor," He said, not mincing words as he walked past the stations where his aides were doing work. This was no time to dally about, skirting around the important issues, "Naruto lent him his Aerodactyl because he had places to be and things to check on. But I hadn't heard from him in quite some time. He was supposed to be traveling to Johto."

None of it made sense. Jiraiya hadn't had any machinations to head up Mt. Silver way whatsoever. He'd been set to head much farther west into Johto. There weren't any Pokémon legends around that area. It was just notable for being filled with ridiculously powerful creatures, but nothing that Jiraiya shouldn't have been able to deal with even if he had somehow wound up in that area.

"But why was he going to Johto?"

"His searches for a particular legendary Pokémon sent him that way after Moltres, Zapdos, and Articuno didn't turn out to be what he had been looking for," Oak explained, remembering the long conversations he had shared with the white-haired man, "Naruto is also in Johto. If my recollection is correct, Jiraiya meant to meet up with him to return his Aerodactyl."

Red nodded at the information, "Then I know where to start looking to give this guy back," He said, holding up Kamisori's Poké Ball, "...I've just got to find a way to track him down from that."

Whether it was a coincidence, or a stroke of serendipity, Professor Oak's aides oftentimes worked with the radio on. Since Kanto currently had no radio station (one was being built), Pallet Town was close enough to pick up on the radio signals from Johto without any significant interference.

The most popular show in Johto was DJ Mary's Pokémon Talk. Most of the time it talked about a lot of gossip and hearsay, celebrity news and whatnot, rumors about what was going on in the towns and out on the routes in Johto. Oak wasn't enough of a stick in the mud to have his aides turn it off, so it stayed on.

Apparently today's guests happened to be a pair that they knew of.

The voice of the host was the first thing they heard over the airwaves, _"Alright, we're back and joining us now on Pokémon Talk are two special guests who came all the way from Kanto!"_ Mary exclaimed, hyping up her visitors.

"_Actually Mary," _Janine said, speaking as though she had an easygoing grin on her face, _"Babyface here is from _way _farther away than just Kanto."_

"_Oh, exotic!"_

"_*giggle* Right?"_

Professor Oak could just see Naruto fidgeting in his seat as the two girls talked and giggled about him. Jiraiya would have had a field day listening to this, or better yet, being there in person to egg it on and make fun of Naruto himself, 'Ah, my friend. What could have happened to you?'

"_So Hoenn? Sinnoh? Unova?" _Mary said, throwing out guesses as to where her blond guest could have originated from,_"Come on, where?"_

Naruto finally spoke up, a bashful lift to his voice as he answered, _"Uh... the Elemental Nations."_

"_...Never heard of it."_

"_Yeah, that's... kind of what I've been getting a lot ever since I've been here. You think I'd get used to it by now, but nah."_

"_Anyway, our first guest today is the Gym Leader of Fuchsia City, Janine!"_

"_Hi!"_

"_And the Gym Leader... no, the representative for Vermillion City in the upcoming Gym Leader Tournament, Uzumaki Naruto. Naruto, you're not a Gym Leader?"_

"_Pssht, no. No matter how much Erika wants to badger me into doing it. You hear that Erika! I'm not taking the spot, I'm just doin' you a favor, 'ttebayo!"_

"_That's right. He's not,"_ Janine admitted in Naruto's stead. They could just see Naruto shrugging in his seat as if would say 'so what?'_ "But he's beaten all of the Gyms in Kanto though."_

"_Not Cinnabar... for obvious reasons, ahem. I never beat Blaine," _Naruto paused to think about what he'd just said,_"Hmm...where's Blaine? I want to go fight Blaine, you know, make it a full set of eight."_

"_Down boy," _Janine chided playfully, _"You've got the badge. That's what matters."_

Red and Professor looked at one another as Red let out a wry grin, "Well at least I know where to go to give Kamisori back," He said, beginning to make his way out of the lab, "...I'll tell him what I know so far Professor."

Oak nodded and waved goodbye, "Take care," Turning his thoughts to a more introspective view after Red departed, the brilliant man could see nothing good coming of what was already happening, "I fear that things will only get worse from here on out."

Red could more than handle himself if something happened, and he would make a call to his grandson Blue in Viridian City to make sure that he was aware that something was transpiring, just in case. Oak himself would not be able to respond if something major began to occur. Right now, he needed to focus on finding his friend from abroad.

XxX

(With Naruto – Johto – Goldenrod City – Goldenrod Radio Tower)

Mary laughed at the interaction between Naruto and Janine. They weren't even five minutes in and she could already see that these two would be lively guests, "Janine, Naruto, you two seem to have a good relationship. I guess that's why you two were picked to come and scope out the competition for the upcoming series of matches between Johto and Kanto."

"Yeah, I think any other combination of Gym Leaders from Kanto would wind up killing each other," Janine said, "Misty hates me. Sabrina hates me _and_ Babyface. Most of us don't even really like each other, except for me, Babyface, and Erika, but Erika's too busy as the Kanto rep to tour Johto herself."

"That's a little too far," Naruto said, measuring up his and her relationships with all of the Gym Leaders in Kanto, "I'm pretty sure Blue likes us. Maybe Brock."

Janine waved his first example off, "Blue just doesn't care. The only thing Blue is really concerned with is being awesome, and leveling up every Pokémon he gets his hands on, which honestly isn't that big of a deal. That's sort of our job to begin with. He's just freaky-good at it."

"He's not even the worst kind of person I've ever met like that, and I heard he isn't even that cocky anymore," Naruto leaned back in his chair, hands behind his neck as he continued to speak into the mic, "Red's like that too, he's just friendlier about it. I'm fine with it really. I kinda like Blue."

"You kind of like everybody."

"So?"

"Alright, we've introduced you to the listeners, so I'll ask you, what's your impression of the Gym Leaders so far?" Mary asked, cutting to the heart of the issue. Their time on the show was to promote the upcoming Gym Leader Tournament, so they would have to talk about it, "Do you think this tournament will be tougher than you think?"

"We've only met two in-person so far. Falkner, and Jasmine. Falkner... I dunno," Janine said, eliciting a snort from Naruto. If she kept the topic on him, Naruto would shoot his mouth off and blast the bird Pokémon trainer on the air. While the temptation to do so herself was very strong, she couldn't let it happen, "But Jasmine, we saw a little bit of what she could do firsthand a few days ago."

"Yeah. Yeesh," Naruto contributed with a sheepish expression on his face at the thought of fighting Jasmine, "I don't know how you're gonna take that Steelix of hers if you have to battle her. If it wasn't for that thing, Bruno might have had us dead-to-rights in Ecruteak City."

"You were there for that," Mary said, getting serious for a moment, as they were dipping into a deadly serious topic, "I'm sure everyone who lives there would like to thank you for doing your part to fight him off. Do you have any idea what one of the Elite Four had any business starting that kind of attack on a settlement?"

Janine and Naruto looked at each other, remembering the incident before choosing to speak about it, "It came out of nowhere," Janine said, remembering what she could of the attack after the Earthquake that ruined most of the city, "They didn't seem to look for anything, or have any objective. The Machop he had as foot soldiers for it were just destroying buildings and killing people."

Mary nodded before turning to Naruto, who seemed to be barely holding back a torrent of violent verbiage regarding the current topic, "Naruto, is there anything you want to add to that?"

"No. But I have a message for any of the others out there in case they're listening," Hearing Naruto's tone, Janine's subtly signaled to Mary and gestured with her eyes to the on-air censor. Mary understood immediately and placed her hand on the button just in case. It didn't take long for her to need it, "To them, and that bitch in the mask that tried to kill us in Violet City... I wrote a poem. It's called, 'Who Ya Gonna Send?'"

"Oh God," Janine grabbed her at the bridge of her nose and cringed, knowing where this would probably go once he pulled out an honest-to-goodness sheet of paper from his pocket," Cut his mike... cut his mike... cut it right now."

Mary's producers did not. Why in the world would they have? Sure, they missed a censor because they hadn't been prepared for Naruto to drop a 'bitch' on-air, but that was show business. It was all a matter of entertainment versus offensiveness.

"Masked lady... think it through. I'm the last guy you want to have a problem with you.  
>You think that mask makes you scary, but it was clear to see I took a lot more outta you than you took outta me.<br>I broke the mirror and blew away the smoke. Sprout Tower might'a bent but it was your Murkrows that broke.

And Elite Four, think it through too. Who are _you_ gonna send?

Bruno's busted-ass Onix diggin' through the ground for us, with less power in it than a handicapped Tauros?  
>If the rest fight like him all they're gonna do is bore us, with his overrated offense and his defense that's porous.<br>Dragonmaster Lance, will he show up? With some Charizard piss in a plastic cup?  
>Agatha or even Lorelei herself, we'll give 'em all beatings and put 'em back on the shelf.<br>Come on trains or bikes, but here's a little advice, don't send someone you like.  
>If you destroy another town with your stupid attacks, you're gonna need a damn Ho-Oh to bring your ass back.<br>And some advice for Masked Lady if she wants my Master Ball, if you fight with a Hokage it's winner-takes-all.  
>You're gonna <em>need<em> that mask if you come by me again, 'cuz against Uzumaki Naruto you can't ever fucking win."

The studio was dead silent for several seconds until Janine said something first, "...You wrote that?"

Naruto nodded, very proud of himself, "Right before we came in here. I called Jasmine and she helped... kinda," With every line that didn't contain an outright profanity, and the Ho-Oh part. Because before she explained it, Naruto didn't know what a Ho-Oh was, or that referencing it was a direct correlation to resurrection, basically saying that he would kill them for being evil, "...Okay, she helped a lot."

Janine leaned her elbow on the table, her cheek in her palm as she smirked at her ninja friend, "I should have figured. Really Babyface, porous?"

"I didn't have anything that even kinda rhymed with Tauros!" Naruto argued in return, his face heating up in embarrassment. He wasn't that terribly dumb! He knew words! Jiraiya made him proofread and help edit his writing, so he picked up a good chunk of it. Honestly though, he really hadn't known what porous had meant when Jasmine had written it, but she'd assured him that it fit, "...Was it good? I could probably rewrite that for all of the Johto Gym Leaders if I had to later."

"It was... something alright," Janine said before looking over to Mary for some kind of assistance to get her out of having to comment any further on the short literary work.

Mary cleared her voice before picking her hosting duties back up brightly. This was turning out to be a pretty good show, "Well I didn't have to bleep as much of that as I thought I would have! But I think they got the message if they heard it."

XxX

(Goldenrod City – Goldenrod Tunnel – Restricted Area – Underground Warehouse)

The grunts had wisely vacated the area around the radio once it was clear that Naruto had been referring to Karen in his vitriol-laden statement. Pokémon Talk was the most popular radio program in Johto, therefore the entire region had heard it.

By the time he was done, the warehouse had cleared out entirely, except for Karen and Will, the former frozen in disbelief at what she was hearing. The latter because he found the brazen calling out of one of the most powerful trainers and dangerous criminals in Johto to be the funniest thing he'd come across in quite some time.

"I thought it was quite good actually," Will said, bringing a previously unresponsive Karen back to life and seething with anger, "A little vulgar for my tastes though. I thought this show was PG."

Karen swallowed down her rage, and decided to channel it into something productive; namely furthering the work that they would need to do for Mask of Ice. Even so, "I'm gonna murder that kid later," She said upon her departure.

She had used a gaggle of Murkrow she'd caught to overwhelm her targets with numbers when she'd fought at Sprout Tower, nothing more. Though her main team did have a Murkrow on it, the real heavy-hitters of her force would be enough to give a brat like that nightmares. He didn't even know.

"I thought that was what Silver wanted to do, not you," The sharply dressed Will said as he let the stewing woman go. It was just about time for him to go and oversee an operation Team Rocket had going in Mahogany Town that was creating promising results, "Oh well. Back to work then."

XxX

(Kanto – Celadon City)

Erika was used to hearing out the concerns and observations of the Gym Leaders in her region. It was her job after all as representative. It was thankless and lacked any sort of benefits for her city or her Pokémon Gym, but someone had to do it and no one else wanted to.

So even when Sabrina, formerly an enemy set on usurping what existed of Kanto's structure of law and order, came to her with a concern, she had to listen.

"You are aware of the fact that none of us trust you, are you not?" "Were Kanto left in a better situation, I would have allowed Blaine to do what he wished with you. But there is no one else qualified to run the Saffron City Gym, so you have been granted clemency."

"Something... big is happening," Sabrina said, massaging her temple, "My head is pounding... every day, and it's always coming from Johto. It keeps getting worse," She couldn't even sit and meditate without her mind being pierced by what was coming from across Mt. Silver.

A psychic on Sabrina's level of skill and power was hyper-sensitive to large influxes of energy to begin with, but for her to feel something significant from that sort of distance, as frequently and as strongly as she did, was a relevant thing. Even so, Erika couldn't allow her to just up and travel of her own volition.

"You are the last important remnant of Team Rocket in this region. I can't allow you to go to Johto to reconnect with the incarnation of the group that exists there," Erika explained smoothly, "Aside from that, Johto's representative would not appreciate me sending feelers to investigate anything out their way. Still… if there's something going on that's beyond a regular human being's scope, I'll ask Naruto and Janine to check on it."

Sabrina scoffed and laughed at such a thing, "Are you kidding? Kanto and Johto's Team Rocket branches broke off before I even joined Giovanni. They would kill me just as soon as you would," She then caught up to the rest of the conversation, "And you would send them to check where exactly? I couldn't even tell you where to tell them to look if I'm not there to pinpoint it myself!"

The grass princess raised a delicate eyebrow at how resolutely Sabrina seemed to feel about this. It was a change from how she normally operated, "How could any outcome be any worse than what Team Rocket had planned?"

"Do you think I'm fearful for no reason?" Sabrina asked, her eyes glowing blue and her body levitating off of the ground before she got herself under control. Emotional outbursts would do nothing for her but disrupt the delicate control she had over her psychic powers, "_I'm_ fearful for no reason? Think about that."

Noticing Sabrina calm herself, Erika's hand twitched away from the bow and arrow she had been prepared to grab to defend herself.

Erika pursed her lips, contemplating just what she had been asked to. Sabrina had a point. She might have been a nasty piece of work as a member of Team Rocket, but she had never been a coward, never wary of confronting anything.

For there to be something that she did take this kind of notice of, especially as far away from her sphere of influence as it was, had to speak volumes on just what she was feeling.

Celadon's cultural leader licked her lips before deciding to regard Sabrina on even ground, "Say I believe you. Say that there is something out there giving you pause," She said, trying to at least be impartial. It was her role to be a balance amongst the differing agendas of Kanto's Gym Leaders. Not judge and jury, "Even if I could trust you to go after it, I cannot in any sort of good conscience send you to Johto alone, far away from any kind of support."

"You don't have to worry about my behavior," Sabrina said with a smirk, "Koga, Lt. Surge, and Giovanni are all dead. No one else has enough of my respect to tempt me to join them," She would stay a Gym Leader this time, thank you very much.

"So Naruto doesn't have your respect?" Erika said, putting on a pleasant smile that seemed to increase the impact of her patronizing efforts, "Even after trouncing you inside of your own Gym when Team Rocket was at its peak of power?"

Sabrina's smirk quickly fell at the reminder of the brutal defeat she had suffered at the hands of the foreign blond, "I'll say the same thing I said when I talked about it last. That guy isn't normal. There's something inside of him beyond any human. I saw it myself."

"Then you should be certain that if the worst comes to pass, he will be able to handle it."

"…The problem is, I don't know just what the worst might turn out to be."

XxX

(Johto – Dark Cave)

Most travelers strayed away from traversing the Dark Cave, despite the fact that it was almost a straight shot from the Cherrygrove-Violet City area to the Blackthorn City area. It was far too dangerous for the fact that it was pitch-black inside.

The only thing worse than traveling through a cave teeming with Zubats and Golbats, and testy Geodudes and Gravelers that didn't like being stepped on, was doing it when you couldn't even see them coming. Even in the dark, the bats could see you. It made for easy prey, and they would bleed a victim dry within moments if they swarmed.

There were no fire Pokémon, or really any other sort that could light the place living in either of the areas where the massive cave let out well enough for the risk of traveling it to pan out.

But for trainers like the Elite Four, they had no such worries. It made for a decent hideout, at least for now. Lance liked being close to the place of his birth, Blackthorn City, and Agatha simply didn't mind the dark whatsoever, and Bruno was off healing.

As it stood, they were down a member due to Lorelei's death in battle on Mt. Silver. As loathe as Lance, Bruno, and Agatha were to admit it, they needed to regroup.

In a dimly lit section of the cave, Lance stood on top of his favorite Dragonite, lording over his fellow Elite Four member Agatha with its size. Agatha herself stood surrounded by ethereal blue flames created by her ghost Pokémon.

Having been present to retrieve the corpse of Lorelei and bring Jiraiya back from the dead, Agatha had given her report of what she had seen upon arriving to the scene of the fight at Mt. Silver.

"I told her not to underestimate him when she volunteered," Lance said in regards to Lorelei's defeat, "I may have gotten the upper-hand against him myself, but there were several factors leading to that."

Lance's ability to control dragons. Jiraiya's lack of desire to hurt his student's Pokemon. The fact that Jiraiya was unaware that Lance was an enemy. Lance attacking not Jiraiya himself, but Jiraiya's surroundings with a Hyper Beam, causing a cave-in.

All of those were factors that led to Lance getting one over on his enemy, and even still, Jiraiya hadn't been badly hurt. He had still been able to retreat from what had been left of Tohjo Falls all the way to Mt. Silver.

"Even so, it wasn't as if the girl had gone easy on him," Agatha pointed out, "She used a technique that in all good conscience he should have died from," The only reason Jiraiya hadn't died was because of her, "Unfortunately for her sacrifice, I think he's interesting."

It was cruel, but it was a fact that Agatha was a cruel woman. She didn't mourn Lorelei's passing, and instead of letting Jiraiya peacefully pass on, she saved him simply so that she could place him under her control.

As she had been speaking, Jiraiya walked in, his face in a stony expression. His headband was no longer a horned metal plate with the kanji for oil. It was made of simple cloth. Plain black cloth. But in the pitch darkness of the cave, if one looked closely enough, one could make out a pair of eyes and a nastily grinning mouth on it.

Lance looked pleased as he dropped down from the back of his Dragonite. The large yellow dragon regarded Jiraiya warily, with several test sniffs, even as its master got closer to the dangerous jounin. Jiraiya didn't blink, didn't budge.

Lance still held a powerful respect for the kind of man Jiraiya was, not just his strength, though it was definitely to be feared, "If anything, one as in-tune with nature as he seems to be would if nothing else understand our cause," The leader of the Elite Four said, "Whether or not he agrees is irrelevant. He won't have any free will, correct? I would like for you to allow his personality to remain though. I liked it."

"You're not against controlling him?" Agatha asked with a wide smirk, "That's kind of a shame. I was almost looking forward to convincing you why having him would be for the best."

Lance let out a chuckle at Agatha's comment, "Well, we do need a replacement for Lorelei, and who better than the man that killed her? He doesn't even need to command any Pokémon to be a threat to any one of us," He walked up to Jiraiya and stood face-to-face with the man, "It looks like I'll get the chance to work with you after all."

To solidify this, Lance extended his hand for Jiraiya to take.

The tall, white-haired shinobi said nothing, but did reach forward and clasp Lance's forearm, as Lance did to his. The Elite Four were now complete once again.

XxX

(Route 34 – Pokémon Day Care)

A Pokémon Day Care really was like a resort, and the one just outside of Goldenrod City had Pokémon of all sorts being left and being taken away.

Naruto and Janine had gotten the call from Jasmine that the Egg was about to hatch while they had been training the afternoon away on the roads leading to and from Goldenrod City. Contrary to what the two of them had first figured when they had been told that the Egg was from two of her Pokémon, it wasn't the baby of any of her steel-types.

Instead, it was the spawn of two Pokémon that Jasmine had identified for their sakes as Togetic. Neither of the two ninjas had ever seen one before, let alone what a baby of theirs would look like.

Janine was very enthused to see it for herself, so much so that even Naruto found himself somewhat caught up in it.

"You darned kids," The kind middle-aged lady who ran the Pokémon Day Care with her husband said, watching Naruto and Janine pace about as the Egg in front of them began to shake wildly, "Bouncin' around ain't gonna make that Egg hatch any faster."

"Aw, let 'em get excited about it," The Day Care Man said, draping an arm around the lady's shoulders, "S'not somethin' you see every day, you know?"

The Day Care Lady shook her head with a smile at her husband, "It's something _we_ see every day."

"Well they ain't us, are they?" He shot back with a snort.

Jasmine kneeled down by the wooden table, two tiny, white winged fairies with crown-like heads and egg-like bodies flew around her anxiously, awaiting the hatching of the Egg they had made together, "Calm down, calm down. It won't be much longer," She said to her Pokémon with a light laugh, "My Togetic are more excited than my friends are."

"I thought you trained steel-types Jasmine," Naruto said, noticing that her two Pokémon were definitely not made of steel.

"Well that's my specialty, but I do have more than just steel-types," Jasmine said as her two Togetic landed on each of her shoulders and rubbed their heads against hers, "Olivine City has an Ampharos that keeps the light going in the lighthouse. That's mine as well."

Naruto gestured to Jasmine showingly, making sure that Janine could see it, "See? Nothing about being a Gym Leader says that you have to use only one type 'Little Miss Poison'," He said.

"I know, but I like poison-types," Janine replied, giving her reasoning for why she chose what she used to do battle, "And I don't _just_ use poison-types. Forretress isn't a poison-type, so shut your big mouth, Babyface."

"Why don't you come over here and shut it for me then?"

"Because I don't want the first thing this baby Pokémon sees in its life to be me kicking your butt all over this place."

"Same for me."

It was quite obvious from how the two of them kept staring at the quivering Egg that they weren't going to leave that spot for anything, let alone a worthless spat that they didn't seem to have their hearts into in the first place. The byplay between them seemed less like a serious challenge and more along the lines of how they instinctively spoke to each other day-to-day, at least as far as the Day Care Couple observed. Both of them shared a knowing look in regards to Naruto and Janine.

Ah… kids.

*CRACK!*

A large crack formed at the top of the Egg, revealing a light-yellow spike. As more pieces of shell fell away from the top, the spike wound up being one of several that formed a crown around the top of the little baby creature's head. Two little arms emerged from the sides, and a pair of feet popped out of the bottom as it opened its little black eyes and let out a yawn.

Naruto waited for it to keep losing pieces of its shell so he could see what it was supposed to look like, but nothing else happened, "Oi, why'd it stop hatching?" He asked, squinting his eyes, brows furrowed in thought.

"Because it's done," Jasmine informed Naruto as the newborn Pokémon tried and failed several times to stand up on its stubby little legs, "It's a Togepi. Togepi keep the shell from their eggs around their bodies until they evolve."

"Oh," Naruto said in a tone of understanding, "That was totally anticlimactic."

His traveling partner didn't think so, "Ooooh, it's so cute!" Janine said, looking at the little egg shell-covered Pokémon that looked at her curiously. Both of its bigger, flying fairy-like parents surrounded it and nuzzled their newborn as a greeting for coming into the world, "Aww… look at them."

Naruto stood back and pulled out his Pokédex to get a little background on what he was seeing.

"_Togepi, the Egg Pokémon. __The shell seems to be filled with joy. It is said that it will share good luck when treated kindly. As its energy, Togepi uses the positive emotions of compassion and pleasure exuded by people and Pokémon. This Pokémon stores up feelings of happiness inside its shell, then shares them with others."_

Jasmine smiled at the Togepi and her two Togetic that had created the Egg. It was a nice picture. She then looked over at Janine gushing over the baby, and Naruto standing behind her shoulder, smiling down at the scene as well. Something there clicked, and Jasmine decided to let them know as much, in her own way, "I think you should have it. Would you like to?"

Both Naruto and Janine were taken aback, "What? Really?" They both said as one.

Jasmine nodded, showing her sincerity, "If it wasn't for you, this Togepi's parents wouldn't have gotten to see it be born in the first place," She explained before clapping her hands together pleasantly, "Plus, I really think that if it travels with you two, it will evolve quickly."

She liked to support people.

Janine wanted to ask why she thought one of them would raise it so well, but then remembered the entry she'd heard offhandedly from Naruto's Pokédex and blushed at what she perceived as Jasmine calling out to her would-be relationship with Naruto.

'Ohhh. That's what she means,' The unsaid, subtle reasoning hit Janine like a freight train, "…Well, if Babyface is okay with it," She said unsurely.

"Of course I am!" Naruto exclaimed, "You were fine with Professor Elm giving me Chienha, and you didn't get anything. So if Jasmine's offering and everything else is cool, you can definitely have it… him… her," He said in confusion, directing his gaze toward the little Togepi, "Uh, is this a boy or a girl?"

The Day Care Man walked over, picked the Togepi up and stared at the confused little thing before handing it over to Janine, "It's a boy."

"Alright then," Janine said, holding her new Togepi close before turning to look at Jasmine's pair of Togetic. She gave them both a serious look and bowed to them deeply, "I swear I'll take good care of Togepi. I'll love him just like the rest of my Pokémon."

If that weren't enough to put them at some sort of ease, Jasmine was more than willing to vouch for her as well, "She's a Gym Leader like me, so she'll raise Togepi to be just as strong as you. She was the one that carried him all this way just for you to see him hatch."

One of the Togetic flew up and into Janine's face, appraising her closely until letting out a happy noise after finding what it had apparently been looking for in her. That was as good a mark of approval as she could have hoped to receive, putting a beaming smile on her face.

As the sun set over Goldenrod City and the surrounding area, Naruto, Janine, and Jasmine bid the couple that ran the Pokémon Day Care farewell before returning to their hotel for the night, one of them with a newborn Togepi contained within a Poké Ball.

It was the kind of thing that let the sort of misfortunes that had transpired around them only two days ago slip closer to the back of their minds.

In other words; not bad for their first day in the big city.

It was the most peaceful day they'd had in Johto thus far, and it wasn't even close. If only that could have kept on being a constant for them. Unfortunately, their lives weren't that placid.

* * *

><p><strong>So Naruto gets a day off, or as close to a day off as he's ever going to get. Meanwhile there's no rest for the wicked, the bad guys are making moves, and Suicune, Raikou, and Entei are running around Johto all of the friggin' time, with Unown flying all over the place, overloading Sabrina's senses.<strong>

**Silver's Totodile has evolved off-screen, he's taking a Teddiursa because that thing evolves into a killa, and he's got access to poached Pokémon and the folks who know how to get him more to round out his team of more experienced Pokémon... all so he can be a decoy to try and sidetrack and weaken one of the few that Johto's Team Rocket have recognized can break them in a straight fight. **

**He doesn't trust them because he knows all of the execs (Carl, Karen, Will, etc.) work underneath the guy that kidnapped him as a child, and they don't trust him because he's a vengeful fucker that ran off from them and made it a point to train by killing their members, but they're using each other. Because that's what single-minded focus gets you when you're dead set on offing somebody.**

**The Elite Four is back to four, and it didn't take long. Next man up I guess, with one of their elite not being an elite trainer, but an elite ninja not exactly in his proper state of mind due to outside meddling. Oh brother, that's gon' get nasty in a hurry.**

**Next time... more stuff!**

**Kenchi out!**


End file.
